So, you’ve started a blog for your business, but now you don’t know how to keep up with it or what to write. This article will walk you through a few basic things you’ll need to do so your blog will rise to the top of the pile. Grab some coffee or tea, and let’s get to it.
A blog, or web log, is a place visitors can go to get more information on your company or product or to gather tips and tricks for getting things done—like this article here. They vary wildly in topic, but they’re usually aligned to the things the company does well. A few of CloudQ’s strengths are blogging and using social media well, creating awesome products, and customizing various solutions for our clients. These are the topics you’ll find on our blog. On a cooking blog, you should expect to find recipes and tips and tricks for the kitchen.
See where I’m going with this?
Finding what your company focus is should be where you start your blog. If you’re focused on politics, perhaps you can throw in opinion pieces or local news along with discussing what’s going on in your country’s capitol. There are literally thousands of topic options, but remember to stay a bit broad. While you want focus to be on your central business, you can also branch into other things that are related.
I’m sure you’re asking yourself how blogging and social media are related to an IT company, right?
We customize solutions, as noted above, and many of those solutions are related to a company’s marketing team. A blog is part of marketing as much as ads. It provides fresh content for the search engines, and it lets people know they can come to your website or company for answers to important questions or solutions to make a business growth plan work. Besides, IT is everything technology, and the internet is technology.
There you go.
So, what are the steps to making connections like the one above—from IT to blogging?
You need to start with the basic focus, but then you need to branch that focus out a bit to include topics that are similar but with a broad range of potential topics under each one. It’s a bit of a list to make, but it’s not difficult once you get going. We’ll use the aforementioned topic of politics as an example.
Blog title: Politics. Naked.
Blog topics: Elections, Votes (who voted how and why they did so), Local Issues, Impact on Citizens, Who’s Who, Proposed Bills, Protests
Now that you have a list of broad topics and a blog title, you’re ready to move into the next phase: Pre-planning.
Here are the steps to starting a blog and making sure things get published when they’re supposed to be:
- Create a Spreadsheet with Dates
- Brainstorm Article Topics
- Write, Write, Write
- Decide on Images and Purchase if Necessary
- Pick Dates for Publication
- Add Titles to Spreadsheet
- Upload, Format, and Schedule
Be sure you’re spreading your topics out. If you’re writing about Proposed Bills, be sure to post something about another topic the next week. Readers love variation!
Also assure you have posts written at least two weeks in advance. There’s nothing quite like scrambling around at the last minute for a topic. Of course, politics leaves you with endless fodder daily.
Any good main topic will have many potential branches you can work from. If you choose to write about your cousin’s toe fungus, there may be a time where you run out of things to write about. Start by choosing carefully.
Once you get into the flow of your blog writing, it should come naturally.
Don’t expect to put a blog into the ether and have a million people visit it and subscribe on day one. You’ll also have to do some marketing work to attract visitors.
Here are a few things you can do to attract readers:
- Post Regularly – if you say your posts are going up on Mondays, be sure they go up then.
- Share on Social Media – post your topics around the web so you reach a broader audience.
- Get Your Blog Listed/Rolled – there are several services out there (free ones) that will catalogue your blog and get it in front of readers.
- Link it Up – link with as many social networks as you can, and be sure people can find you everywhere.
- Stick to Your Topics – a political blog reader doesn’t want a post about your dog (unless said dog is a direct relative of the President’s).
- Keep Loading Times Fast – don’t bog your blog down with tons of ads or images—speed is key, and readers loathe this tactic.
- Important Things Above the Fold – this means keeping leading information where people can see it without scrolling.
If you follow these tips, you’ll have an excellent reader base in no time.
I hope this article helps you in some way. If you have tips to add, feel free to let us know!
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