Tips for a Fantastic Business Blog: An Introduction

“The first thing you need to decide when you build your blog is what you want to accomplish with it, and what it can do if successful.”
1. Whatever role you play in the wide world of business marketing – from small business owner to advertising department intern – chances are you’re aware of the concept of writing and maintaining a business blog.
The internet is littered with blogs written by all types of people; the stay-at home mom looking to share her daily experiences, the film student blogging his way through his documentary-making assignments, the business CEO seeking a way to connect with his clients. Blogging is a trend that is seemingly here to stay, and that can benefit your business in many ways when executed correctly.
Why start a business blog? The short answer to this question is that a well written, interesting blog can be a simple, easy platform with which you can connect with your clients and share information with the public. Studies show that businesses who maintain blogs typically experience a bump in sales and bring in new customers who otherwise would not have heard about the company! A blog gives your company a voice! Through blog posts, you can talk freely with your customers about new products, services you offer, trends in your industry and other information pertinent to the community, readership and customer base that you serve.
Additionally, a well-written blog allows you the opportunity to be viewed as an expert your field, generates traffic to your business website, and provides you with an opportunity to build a sense of connection and community with your customers. When it comes to efficient, easy ways to share information with your customers, a blog is, hands down, the best way to maintain an active conversation with existing and potential clients alike! Your company’s blog is by far your most powerful way to share your voice and online presence with readers – making you a source of written content and information they trust and depend upon for needs related to your specific industry.
The key to producing great content for your readers is to provide well planned, thorough posts covering a wide variety of content types. Consider options such as how-to articles, industry-specific news reports, stories of customers’ specific experiences with your product or services, and opinion pieces that encourage commentary from your customers. In chapter three, we will delve further into types of blog content, and tips for producing stellar blog posts that are sure to grab the attention of your readers and customers! When considering whether or not to start a company blog, businesses often wonder who will read the material they produce, and how it will benefit their Sales.
In addition to reaching out to their current customer base, businesses typically find that readers from across the world are viewing their content, and are in turn visiting their website and even ordering their products! The bottom line is, producing quality blog posts that are specific to your industry and appropriately dense in keyword-targeted content is a fast, consistent way to bring new readers to your blog, and to turn those readers into repeat customers.
Through the remaining chapters of this eBook, we will cover tips and tricks that will help you develop a thorough understanding of blog hosting, content writing, site-promoting and search engine optimization, leaving you ready to start publishing a dynamic, attention-getting business blog. These tested, tried and true methods of blogging have helped businesses achieve their blog development goals for years, and are now available to you through the pages of this eBook! As you move through the tips in this eBook, take time to make notes and write down thoughts that are specific to your blogging goals. Taking notes as you read is a great way to make the information shared here work for you, leaving you with a list of strategies and ideas tailored just for you and your business blog when you are through!
2 Blog Hosting 101: An Overview of the Blogging “Big Guys” “Blogging is just writing – writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology.”
Once you have decided that you would like to begin a blog for your business, the first step to blogging success is to choose the hosting site that you will use to publish your blog. A blog hosting website provides your blog’s URL (website address,) allows you to choose a theme for your web page, and ultimately becomes the interface through which you will publish the content of your business blog day in and day out. There are many blog-hosting sites, but for the sake of time we will only cover a few of the “big guys” of blogging, focusing on those that are easy to use, free of charge and most popular within the blogging world.
Blogger
Blogger is a blog-hosting interface owned by Google. This publishing service has been around for practically as long as the internet, and because of its longevity and the power of its parent company, it is one of the most used and trusted hosting sites around. Blogger provides blog interfaces that are simple to set up, customize and use, and also makes monetization (earning money through ads placed on your blog) simple through the use of Google AdSense. Google has been actively working to improve search engine optimization (SEO) of Blogger-run blogs, and is growing the list of themes and plugging available to their bloggers fairly consistently.
Wordpress
Although one of the more complex publishing sites, Wordpress is praised by its users for being versatile, easy to customize, and excellent in the area of search engine optimization. It is commonly believed that Wordpress requires a little more study and skill to master, especially considering that a great deal of the customization capabilities require users to tinker with HTML code. Like Blogger, Wordpress has longevity on its side, being just a little over a decade old. Choosing a Wordpress blog may mean committing to a bit more time for learning and reviewing tutorials – definitely something to take into consideration if you’re new to blogging altogether.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a fairly new blog interface that was recently acquired by Yahoo!. The site is more of a "micro-blogging” platform, meaning users focus on short, concise posts made up of video, short copy, infographics, images, Pictures and other forms of media. Users within the Tumblr community are very reciprocal -- commenting, connecting and linking back to posts of other bloggers often. Bloggers who maintain a Tumblr blog should be comfortable talking and engaging with their customers, posting visual content and sharing quick updates multiple times per day. Points to Consider When Choosing a Blog-Hosting Site
1. Space. Make sure that your host site has enough web space to support your blogging needs. Consider the number of pictures you will use on your blog, as well as how often you will post sound files, video clips, animated images, etc. In addition to making sure your blog isn’t slow to load in the beginning, this tip is also important so that there is space to expand as your blog begins to grow over time.
2. Limitations. In the same vein, be sure to check file size and type limitations. Be sure that your needs are covered by making sure you are able to upload the types of files you want (i.e. gif, jpeg, pdf) and that there are reasonable limits on the sizes of the files you are permitted to upload to your blog.
3. Reviews. Spend time reading reviews from other bloggers. Explore what other blog writers in similar fields have to say about the blog hosts you are considering.
4. Stick with Free. With the large amount of free blog-hosting sites that are widely used today, paid sites such as Square Space or Type pad are most likely unnecessary for your blogging needs. Avoid committing to hosting sites that charge a monthly fee unless you are absolutely sure that one of the free alternatives will not work for your business.
5. Customer Service. Take a moment to look into how customer service issues are handled within the blog-hosting company you are considering. Are representatives available to answer questions or help with problems that arise? During what hours is customer service provided? How quickly does the service respond to questions and concerns?
Choosing a platform through which to host your blog is not only the first step in the process to starting a successful blog for your business – it is also the most important! Without a blog-hosting site that you feel comfortable using and are confident will meet your needs in both the short and long term, you will find yourself frustrated and ready to give up on blogging early into your blog-writing venture.
By following the advice in this chapter and doing some research to be sure Your blog-hosting site meets your needs, you are building a firm foundation for your business blog that is sure to kick-start your blogging venture and get you moving on to posting well-planned, interesting content in no time at all!