I decided to make this particular blog post with the sole purpose of sharing my best advice and tips on blogging for small businesses base on my personal experiences over the years. I’ve had quite a few blogs over the years. Not to mention the fact that I occasionally freelance write for other publications as it is genuinely something I enjoy.
The point is, I learned a great deal while blogging for myself and blogging for small businesses. I realized that I was missing some key fundamentals that could have really given my blogs the boost I needed at the time. I learned what works, what doesn’t, and why.
If you’re exploring blogging as a career, blogging to earn money, or just curious as to what blogging is all about, you’re in the right place. In this article, you’ll learn what blogging means for small businesses and how to do it successfully.
Table of Contents
Learn Everything About Blogging For Small Businesses
Have Realistic Expectations
Think Long Term
Create an Editorial Calendar
Incorporate Marketing
Collaborate With Others
Final Thoughts
Learn Everything About Blogging For Small Businesses
Any business owner will tell you that it’s important to delegate tasks to employees or freelancers in order to be more productive and profitable in your business. I totally agree with that sentiment. In fact, it’s one piece of advice I always give to business owners. In my opinion, blogging is a task that one should delegate if it’s not your passion and you feel that your time could be better spent elsewhere in your business.
However, you should know how to do the thing you want to outsource or delegate. That goes for any and all tasks and operations in your business. That is a painful and expensive lesson I had to learn the hard way. (Story for another time.)
Why is that important? I often compare outsourcing tasks that you don’t know how to do yourself, to going to a car repair shop. If you don’t know much about cars, it’s easy to get ripped off.
I’m sure by now you’ve noticed that I keep emphasizing blogging for small businesses rather than simply blogging. As a business owner whose primary goal is to sell the products or services you offer, that focus should carry over to your blog as well, but not in an overbearing sales pitchy type of way. You want to convert website visitors, not repel them.
Skills you’ll need to hone are blogging for SEO while keeping search intent in mind and persuasive copywriting, just to name a couple.
Have Realistic Expectations
Another key fundamental, and possibly the most important, is patience. There are so many great blogs out there that cover the topic of making money through blogging. I fear that many people see the accomplishments, or what seems like the easy and quick success, of popular blogs and think they will create a blog and be an overnight sensation.
The truth is, it can happen. I’ve personally seen it happen. However, I’ve never seen a novice pull it off. It’s always someone with many years of blogging experience applying what they’ve learned.
But hey! Anything is possible. Just don’t get your hopes up.
That’s why patience and endurance are key. In the beginning, it’s going to be slow. Meaning you won’t make a ton of money right away. Not to mention, if you are an absolute novice when it comes to blogging, not only will it be slow but you will also experience an extreme learning curve without the help of a mentor or SEO marketing consultant.
Why an SEO expert? Because you want your ideal customers or clients to actually find your website as opposed to writing content that won’t appear on search engines.
READY TO ATTRACT AND CONVERT MORE LEADS TO YOUR WEBSITE?
If you’re serious about having a successful blog for your business, I’m here to help. Book a call with me today!
Think Long Term
There is so much that goes into the actual development of a blog, like aesthetics, branding, SEO strategy, being compliant (FTC, GDPR, and CCPA), and the overall content planning process before launching your blog. Making the assumption that you already know what you’d like to call your blog and what your niche will be, you have to think about the execution of your blog.
Additionally, you’ll want to produce good content that you can eventually monetize. No matter if your blogging for your small business or if you want an affiliate blog, you’ll want to eventually promote either your own products or services or someone else’s. Whatever the case, blogging for income is the goal.
Create an Editorial Calendar
Assuming that you are like most people who would work in your business and blog at the same time until you reach the point of being able to outsource it, you need to make sure you have a good work/blog balance. It is very difficult to blog while working full time in your business. Difficult, but not impossible. Especially if you set aside specific times to develop your content.
First, you would want to organize an editorial calendar so that you know well in advance what blog posts you will develop. Based on your schedule, the editorial calendar will also help you decide how many blog posts you will develop and how often you will distribute them.
Once you have your editorial calendar all worked out and have set a realistic schedule for yourself to develop your content, you will find that a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Many people say that coming up with blog topics and having writer’s block is one of their biggest challenges.
Incorporate Marketing
Now at this point, you have your content all mapped out for the next six months to a year. Assuming that you already have a blog template in mind or someone you would hire to develop a blog theme especially for you, you need to think about marketing. How would you market your content? You will want to carefully consider which social media platforms you will set up for your blog.
Social media in itself is a whole different ballgame altogether. Considering that people “do” social media for a living, I’d say it’s a big deal. You can of course always hire someone to manage your social media pages for you, however, I wouldn’t recommend that in the beginning.
For one thing, your blog probably hasn’t started making money yet and for another, it’s kind of important to learn how to market yourself on social media. This goes back to my point about learning every aspect of your business. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is.
The good news is, it’s really easy to take an online course or hire a digital marketing consultant to teach you about the best social media practices for business. One of the absolute best platforms to take online course is LinkedIn Learning but second to it is Teachable, a company of which I am an affiliate.
Collaborate With Others
Once you have the social media platforms figured out, you would want to consider other marketing efforts like guest blogging. This is a great way to build your SEO because of back linking but it also helps you get in front of more people. It also helps their blog because you give them a bit of a break from developing their own content by offering your well-thought-out content to their readers.
Besides guest blogging, you may want to simply be featured on other blogs or websites for publicity. If a highly recognized platform such as the Huffington Post, interviews you or mentions your blog (in a positive light of course), this will certainly boost your credibility as an expert in your niche.
I always say good media relations is far better than a paid advertisement any day because you are not the one telling folks how great your brand is, someone else is doing that for you.
There are many other ways to promote your content besides paying for advertisements. Personally, I love cross-promoting other bloggers. You can post about another blogger’s content on your social media platforms and they will do the same for you in return. It’s a great way to get started especially if you don’t have the money to spend right away on promoting.
Final Thoughts
Just remember, when starting a new blog, you want to be patient because it will take some time to get your blog to where you would like it to eventually be. If you are a novice, learn as much as you can about blogging and prepare well before launching your blog, that way you can avoid many of the pitfalls most beginners make.
Figure out what social media platforms would be best for your blog and put diligent effort toward marketing. Above all, make sure you have fun and enjoy the journey.
Do you have some key elements you’d like to share on how a blogging can be successful? Tell us in the comments below!
READY TO ATTRACT AND CONVERT MORE LEADS TO YOUR WEBSITE?
If you’re serious about having a successful blog for your business, I’m here to help. Book a call with me today!
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