Mary Ellen EllisEveryone has a blog. It seems like a requirement for every company’s website to have a blog with industry information, company updates, personal thoughts and whatever else seems to offer a chance to stuff keywords and get more page views. Before you create a blog for your business, there are a few things you should know:
Your blog won’t promote itself.
So you set up your WordPress blog. You start crafting heartfelt posts that are informative and that you’re sure your customers will love. You wait for the page views to rack up and the comments to get rolling, but nothing happens. Unless you already have a well-established website with thousands of regular visitors, nothing will happen. You have to promote the heck out of your blog before anyone will read it, no matter how brilliant your writing is.
Promoting a blog takes time. And effort.
Before you commit to this endeavor, know that promoting your blog, especially enough to get it read and commented upon, will take a lot of time. You may not even know how to do it correctly. Do you know about links and backlinks? Do you know how to do SEO and how to craft a headline that could go viral? Are you active on all the major social media sites? Do you even know what all of this means? Assess your abilities and your willingness to spend time learning how to effectively promote your blog. If you can’t put in the time to promote it well, your well-crafted writing will remain unseen.
You need a mailing list once (or before) you create a blog.
That’s right, a good, old-fashioned mailing list. Of course, yours will be full of email addresses, not snail mail. An email mailing list is going to get your blog out there to your readers. Your mailing list should consist of people who are potential buyers of your product or service. Once you have this, you can really start to use your blog to sell. You have a target audience and you can send them your sales-oriented, informative and, of course, brilliant blogs every time you update them.
You shouldn’t be afraid to get a little personal.
Have you ever read a blog that was tedious, boring and crammed full of keywords and industry facts you didn’t care about? Of course not. Who would read that? You can create a blog to provide your customers with useful information, which may be dry sometimes, but you should also use it more informally. This is not your long-form sales page or your product landing page. This is a blog. Show off your personality and demonstrate to your customers that you are a real human being behind the business. They’ll appreciate it and will be more willing to buy from you.
You have to update your blog regularly.
You don’t need a new post every day, but your blog should be refreshed at least once a week, preferably two or three times. Fresh, relevant content helps you keep your search engine ranking, but it also keeps customers and potential customers come back to your site. You’ll need to be strict about this and keep the content coming, or there is no point in having a blog. It is not supposed to be static content.
A blog for your business can be a useful and effective tool for improving sales. It can also be a deadweight that sucks your time away from more important tasks. If you are planning to create a blog, do your homework first. Know what it takes and be prepared to do it right, or don’t do it at all.
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