Building Blocks for a Successful Business Blog
Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging Basics , Business Blog design , Starting a Blog
You want to have a blog which benefits your business – yes?
You want a blog which people are going to want to come back to time and time again – yes?
Essentially, you want a blog which is going to be successful – yes again?
Well, to give you the best chance of a successful business blog, then you’re going to need to make sure that you tick all the boxes to ensure that all of the underlying elements are in place to make that happen. It’s not difficult but it is important.
For me, there are 5 elements which are like building blocks that make a blog what it is, 5 layers if you like that constitute the makeup of a blog and so 5 key aspects that you need to keep in mind as you plan and develop your blog.
1. Philosophy
Underpinning everything else are the general philosophy needed for blogging – you’ve got to be comfortable with the basic ideals of what people expect from blogs or else you’re going to fall at the first hurdle. The key one is that of openness – if you, or your company, are not willing to be open and honest in dealing with the readers of your blog then the likelihood is it will not achieve the goals you have for it. Be transparent and honest, and you’re off on the right foot.
2. Technology
You need to build the blog on the right technology base so that it supports what you want to do with it. It has to be one that will help your blog achieve the requirements that you have for it, both now and in the future. Making sure that it can grow with your ongoing needs is key to effectively future proof all the work and effort that you’ll be putting in. There are a number of excellent blogging platforms available – my own preference being for the full self hosted WordPress – but just ensure that you pick one that will be able to grow with you.
3. Business
Getting the business elements right means that you are treating the blog as the business and marketing tool that it is rather than as a piece of technology divorced from the company’s aims and requirements. Getting the business part right means that you’ve planned your objectives and aims for the blog, know how you intend to promote it (including with social media tools in place) and have answered the 3 key questions in the planning phase which are:
- i) What do you want the blog to be used for
- ii) Who is your target audience and what do you want to attract to your blog
- iii) What you want to achieve with it and how to measure that?
4. Layout and Graphics
The so called “look and feel” layer focuses on how the blog will be laid out and takes into account not only the graphical elements and branding but also how the layout and structure can reflect the goals of the blog and the company. In addition, the layout should support the business goals by ensuring that the key “real estate” areas are used as effectively as possible and navigation remain intuitive and compelling giving a “stickiness” to the blog.
5. Content
Finally the content is ultimately where your ongoing focus needs to be, with all of the other elements essentially being there in place to support and market what you write about. This is of course the key part which needs to have our ongoing focus since all of the other elements will ideally be planned and implemented in the planning and preparation phases.
While the content element does rightly get the lion’s share of our attention and much of the online advice on setting up and writing blogs, the content will only work to its full potential in a blog built with a foundation of the other elements outlined above. They are what ensures that the content is correctly focused, distributed, read and shared – essentially delivering you a successful blog in the process.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:34 am
Glad to see you Blogging again Mark, I follow your RSS as I like your back to basics approach, as exemplified by this article.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Thanks Nick – glad to be back in the frame, as it were. Got a few things coming up that I hope will also prove interesting. All the best to you!
July 5th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I’ve been waiting patiently for you next blog post, great to see you back. I think content is always going to be the most important of the blocks. A flashy blog with poor content loses to a basic blog with good content every time.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for the post. What I liked about your blog is your simple appproach to blog business and the important parts of it.I truly believe of your honesty policy.I think business is to earn money at the same time earn trust and respect from the others.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Thanks Liam, that’s kind of you. As for your comment, I agree absolutely, but I think that our goal has to be to ensure that we give our content the best possible chance to get read and shared. So good content by all means, but let’s put the infrastructure around it to promote it to our best ability.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
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October 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 am
WOW..this is Absolutely fantastic resource for every new blogger.As i am a fresher it’ll give me a solid direction.Thank you for sharing such a informative post.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:37 am
I’m just starting a blog and this information will be a big help. Thanks for all the insightes.
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:57 am
Very informative blog. I really like the tips you have given.Thank you so much for sharing.Keep it up.Keep blogging.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
There also needs to be regular commitment to the blog
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Excellent points about getting back to basics. Many people focus on the bells and whistles and forget that people want openness and good content!
March 12th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Hi I was interested about getting the foundation right. I currently use typepad, although WordPress seems to be favoured by most. It was recommended to me by a blogger but I have found it tricky to add things in like widgets and design the structure of the site myself. Typepad doesn’t offer much support apart from forums and a database which never has what I need in it! Can you tell me if Typepad is a good IT based for a fully commercial blog site. I think typepad call it a web blog rather than blog because it has lots of additional features. I’d be really interested to hear your take on this.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:56 am
I agree with you I think that content is always going to be more important for blocks. Great points about back to basics.
July 12th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Thanks mark for this insight into blogging, I totally agree that content is key and is most beneficial for the one reading. You have laid the building blocks of how to create a successful blog and I will follow your 5 steps when I create mine…
August 6th, 2010 at 11:31 am
This is a great guide for creating blogs for business! Thank you!
February 10th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Thanks for all the great advice especially the coffee shop analogy and nice simple writing: exactly what l need
April 13th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Very valuable information for people, who own business related blogs. I will definitely make use of tips and recommendations provided in this post.
May 17th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
This is a brilliant guide to blogs. I have been thinking about adding a seperate blog for my web design site and will be using this guide.
March 7th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Very interesting post. For successful business marketing, you need to develop a proper business marketing plan, and then gauge its performance for your business growth.
March 18th, 2012 at 7:07 am
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June 6th, 2012 at 11:29 am
I have to say that working with many companies across a number of different sectors, most fail to realise the importance of Philosophy in their reasoning. They just see blogs as a way of advertising products rather than informing readers and offering the chance to connect with them.
July 11th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
I agree, don’t forget the layout. People make split second decisions whether or not they are going to read your blog. The nicer it looks, pictures and layout, the more likely they are to read it.
I also found that breaking up paragraphs help as well.
Thanks for this blog.
July 27th, 2012 at 3:50 am
This is excellent guide to blogs. .I like your tips you have given. Very informative details thanks for posting and sharing your post.