For every business with a successful blog, there are dozens of other businesses with blogs that haven’t been updated in months or even years. While a blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business, you not only have to understand how to get it off the ground, but also how to keep it going. If you want your business to have a successful blog, here’s everything that you need to know:
It Takes Time
The 90,000 people who read 37signals’ blog on a daily basis didn’t magically come out of nowhere. Instead, the company started blogging in 2001 and spent six long years consistently building their audience. While it’s easy to throw your arms up and say that your blog will never have a large audience, that’s simply not true. On the other hand, if you expect to slap together a few posts and attract thousands of readers, you’re going to be disappointed. The key to creating a thriving business blog instead of one that looks like a ghost town is to be patient and consistent. If you stick with it, you will see results down the line.
Be Opinionated
The tech space is probably the most crowded area in the entire blogosphere. However, even though it seems like a space that’s too full to accommodate, a few new tech blogs rise to prominence each year. The reason this is possible is because most of the tech blogosphere is an echo chamber. The blogs that succeed are the ones that draw a line in the sand. Because these bloggers aren’t just rehashing the same news as every other tech blog, people are drawn to them. Although you’re a business owner and not a blogger, the lesson you can learn is to not be afraid to share your opinions. By giving your posts real personality, people will want to continue reading what you have to say.
Use a Calendar
Whether you publish two posts a week or one every two weeks, the key is finding a schedule that works for you and then sticking with it. One of the best ways to stay consistent is to use a calendar to plan your posts. If you’re using WordPress, a free plugin like Editorial Calendar will make this easy to do. By taking a structured approach to your blogging, you will be able to ensure that you never run out of interesting posts to publish.
Don’t Miss Out on Opportunities to Interact
Blogging provides two excellent avenues of interaction. The first is with existing and potential customers. Because this type of interaction used to cost a significant amount of money to obtain, it’s well worth your time to reply to any comments or emails you receive about anything you write on your blog. The other avenue of interaction is with other business owners in your industry and related ones. In addition to being a great way to network with the type of people you want to know, blogging gives you a platform to become a thought leader within your industry.
While blogging won’t change your business over night, the benefits you can reap from doing it right make the effort you put into building a successful blog well worth it!