Enterprise Nation

Do you run a blog for your business? There are some useful techniques you can apply to gain interest, says Karen McNulty of MarketingPlanWiz. She offers her top “dos” and “don’ts” to help your business blog along.

First things first

You need to first decide where to create your blog, if you haven’t already.  It can stand alone or be hosted by one of the free blogging platforms such as Blogger.com, Wordpress or Typepad.  This sometimes means that it will have a different domain name to your usual website domain.  But being hosted somewhere else means it will drive traffic back to your website if it’s found using search.  Alternatively, you can add a blog page into your website, on the back of your own domain, for example www.blog.mywebsite.co.uk.

Once you’re up and running, blogs are incredibly easy to write and publish quickly.  It’s just like using a basic word processor.  Getting the content right so that search engines find it is probably the most important thing to think about.

Here are our “dos” and “don’ts”:

Do:

• Think before you write – if you want people to follow you, do some research before you write.  What are popular searches in your field?  Are there any trending topics and key words (words that are popular searches at the moment.  You can use the Google Keyword Tool to see how many searches have been made each month for specific keywords, which can be really useful, and it's free) If so, can you relate your blog to any of these?
• Use your blog to demonstrate you’re an expert in your subject
• Make sure you use keywords in the content and add them as tags when you’ve finished (most blogging software makes this very easy to do).  This makes it easier to find your relevant content.
• Add links in your blog to useful information that supports your topic (in the spirit of sharing, blogs allow you do this really well)
• Include photos and video if at all possible.  Visitors and search engines like rich media content and this will add interest.
• Be yourself. It’s important that your personality comes through and blogs with a strong style (still professional of course), tend to get a stronger following as people like to get to know the blogger.

Don’t

• Sell if you can avoid it. Use email newsletters and your website to do this.  Blogs are all about sharing your knowledge and building trust with your followers because you can demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.
• Start blogging then stop, leaving it live.  This can damage your business image as it will look like you can’t be bothered to maintain it.

Blogging can be fun and significantly raise your profile. Good luck with your blogging business!

Karen McNulty is co-founder with Fay Judson of MarketingPlanWiz