Someone mentioned that you should have a blog for your business, but you have no idea where to begin. It’s not as hard as you think–it’s definitely not as hard as starting a business, and you already did that. You may even find blogging for your business to be a fun new hobby.
Take a look at these tips for first-time business bloggers and let the creativity begin.
Choose the Right Program
Before you can begin blogging, you need to choose a program or hosting site that will meet your business goals and match your computer skills. If you are a novice or beginner, you will want to choose a free blog hosting site like Blogger. This program allows you to easily add photos and text, and you can link your blog automatically to your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ accounts.
More experienced users may want to go with WordPress or a similar program. These programs offer more varieties of layout designs and give users more options with widgets and added pages. But don’t go with the advanced program if you are a novice–you will spend too much time trying to learn formatting techniques and have no time left to blog.
Determine Your Purpose
So what do you want to accomplish with your blog? Never blog just to blog. Have a purpose and stick with it. Maybe you want to blog about trends in your industry? Maybe you want to blog about new products or new happenings at your company? Either way, make sure you clearly define your purpose and the goal of the blog.
Plan Ahead
Once you start a blog, you never want to stop and leave it hanging out in cyberspace for long periods of time. Plan to blog at least once or twice per week. Make an outline of blog articles so you know what you will post each month. Plan ahead for special events or important dates you want to blog about. This will also save time so you can just sit down and blog and not waste time brainstorming ideas.
Be Interesting
No offense, but no one cares about quarterly reports or your mission statement. Save those items for your website. Make your blog a useful tool for your customers or potential customers. For example, if you blog for your gym, write about exercise techniques or use your blog to review new exercise programs or techniques.
Studies show that most readers don’t like to scroll down to continue reading. Keep your blog posts short enough to fit on one screen. If your blog is a chore to read, then no one will make the effort.
Make it Pretty
Make your blog as visually stunning as possible. You want people to be attracted to it at first glance. Add in photos and videos. Images not only make the blog look better, but they help break up blocks of text to make the blog read easier. Some blogs are mostly photos and just a little text, and some aren’t. The balance doesn’t have to be exact.
Ready, Set, Blog!
Now you are ready to start blogging. Make it fun. The last thing you need is another chore at your business. Blog away and make sure you don’t forget to share it with your customers.
About the Author: Kim Wade is a freelance writer who writes about blogging, online reputation management, and more.
