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11 Tips for Getting Readers for Your Business Blog

readerpedrosimoes7You’ve set up a blog for your business and started writing.  Now, how do you get readers?

  1. Content, Content and more Content – Did I mention content?  The only way to attract and keep readers is with great content.
  2. Share – You started a business because you have some specialized expertise.  Share that expertise with your readers.  They will respect your efforts and look to you for advise.
  3. Consistency – Readers need to know that there’s a reason to check back from time to time.  Choose a posting schedule and try to stick with it.  Ideally, you should be posting at least once a week.
  4. Stay on Target – While straying off the path occasionally is ok, readers generally expect you to post on a certain subject matter (whatever your expertise is).  You may want to keep a personal blog for other posts (remember you’re representing your business).
  5. Listen & Respond – Encourage readers to interact with you through comments and email.  Listen to what they say and respond intelligently.  Your blog should be a place to have a conversation with your customers.
  6. Be Helpful – Related to #5, anywhere you see a question you can answer, answer it.  Help people out with problems and concerns, not just on your blog, but anywhere you see people post their issues.  If it’s something you can write about on your blog, you’ll also help out others who may have the same problem.
  7. Market – Add links to your blog on your website, your business card, your brochures, your email signature, and anywhere else you can.  You’ll need to let customers know that you have a blog.
  8. Be Social – Join social networks and socialize with the members.  Most social networks will also allow you to link to your website and blog.  Some will even automatically import posts from your RSS feed.
  9. Blogosphere – Read other industry blogs and comment on their posts.  Link to posts you think your readers would be interested on.  Write opinions about posts on your own blog.
  10. Keywords & SEO – Don’t go overboard trying to get keywords into your posts, but do take good SEO practices into account.  Knowing the keywords you want to target can help you incorporate them into your posts.
  11. Patience – It takes time to grow a readership on a blog.  It can take over a year to get a decent following, so don’t expect your blog to take off right away.  It takes a regular commitment to great content and a lot of patience.

Do you have a business blog?  What tips can you share for getting readers?

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(photo by pedrosimoes7 @ Flickr CC)

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Business Blogging – What to Write

blogginghummyhummyOnce you have your business blog set up, what should you write? We mentioned briefly in the Business Blogging Startup Guide that you should write about anything your customers would want to know, but what is that exactly?

Showcase Your Expertise

One of the easiest ways to get started is to write about what you know.  Try to get tidbits of information out of your head and to your customers in short easy-to-understand posts.  Come up with subjects that your customers would be interested in and then break them into smaller topics that you can cover in a series of posts.  Write posts for whatever topics and subjects you mention on your business website, taking the time to explain them more thoroughly.

Tap Into Customer Support Requests

Both product and service companies get customer support requests.  Take a look at what your customers are asking and cover issues on your blog.  If there is a larger problem that affects your customers, address it frankly in your blog.  Covering problems will help your customers help themselves.  More importantly, you’ll let them know that you’re listening so they’ll be more likely to let you know when there is a problem.

Review Sales Info & Quotes

By taking a look at your sales information and quotes, you can find out what your customers are interested in purchasing right now.  You can cover topics regarding those products and services to help customers make informed choices (just don’t sound like an advertisement).

Look for Hidden Gems

In all your sales information and other business statistics you probably have some hidden gems that would be of interest to your customers and to the industry.  Maybe you also belong to an industry association that provides industry statistics you can summarize for your customers.  Look for information that your customers may not be able to find elsewhere.

Have an Opinion

Take a look at industry trade sites and other blogs to see what’s going on.  Feel free to choose topics and post your viewpoint on your blog.  Blogging is about having a conversation and being able to easily find many different viewpoints on any one issue.

Ask Your Customers

This is an easy one.  Just ask your customers what they’d like to know more about.  Sometimes it won’t be a direct question about what to blog but a conversation you’ve had recently at a conference or networking event.  If one person asks a question there are probably others who are interested in the answer.

Have a Conversation

Encourage your customers to comment on your posts.  Listen to their opinions and answer them honestly.  Ask for input with leading questions on your posts.  Take a look at other blogs to see what people are saying about your company and address it on your blog.  Having a blog is a great opportunity to connect with your customers.

Have a business blog?  Where do you get writing ideas from?

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(photo by hummyhummy @ Flickr CC)

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Business Blogging Startup Guide

bloggingjezatkinsonOnce you’ve decided to start blogging for your business, all the little steps may become overwhelming, so we’ve created this guide to get you started.

Blogging Software/Platform

First you need to decide where you’re going to blog – what software or website you’re going to use.  Having the blog hosted by another company makes things very easy.  Best of all, some of the best options are free, WordPress and Blogger.  We use WordPress for all of our blogs, so I highly recommend it.  The hosted version at WordPress.com has a full set of features, and with spending just a little bit extra, $25 per year, you can customize the theme and the domain name.  Whatever blogging platform you chose, make sure you are comfortable with it and it can grow as your blog grows.

Domain Name

The domain name, or URL, for your blog is almost as important as the one for your business website.  By leveraging your existing domain name (the one for your website), you can make it easier for people to find your blog. It also allows the content on your blog to count towards the search engine optimization (SEO) of your website.  How?  Let’s say your website domain name is mycompany.com.  Use a blog domain name of something like blog.mycompany.com (see how it uses your domain name for the last part?).  This is a bit trickier than using the default domain names that many blogging sites give you (mycompany.blogger.com), but pays off in the long run.

What to Write

Now that you have your blog all set up.  What to write?  Write whatever you think your customers would be interested in.  Showcase your expertise.  Try to help your customers by getting knowledge out of your head and onto your blog.  Worried about losing competitive advantage?  Actually by showcasing what you know and your willingness to help, you have a much bigger competitive advantage than keeping it all in your head.

How to Write

Writing for a blog is a bit different than other types of writing.  Posts should be relatively short and to the point.  Using headings or bullet points to highlight your major points make the posts easier to read.  Titles should be catchy (think newspaper headlines).  Adding images to break up the text of your posts makes the blog more visually appealing.  Use a personable voice so readers find you approachable and encourage readers to voice their own opinions in comments.

Getting Readers

Add your blog link to your email, your website, your business cards, and anything else you send out to customers.  Join social networks which target your intended audience and interact with the community.  Once you’ve got a feel for the community, start adding comments to other posts and posting your own articles and blog posts.  Also use social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter where you can syndicate content right from your blog.  Use services like Feedburner to syndicate content from your blog onto your other websites.  Getting readers takes a bit of effort and time, so we’ll go into more detail in a future post.

Be Patient

Getting readers can take time.  Even blogs that are popular today took quite a bit of time to get that way (usually a year or more).  You need to committ to posting regularly for a long period of time to see results.   This also includes marketing your blog through the means discussed in Getting Readers above.  Luckily, once you do get some readers, you should start to see your efforts quickly multiply as they tell others.

(photo by jez.atkinson @ Flickr CC)

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