Diary of a successful Business Blog (Part 2 – the preparation)
Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging for Small Businesses , Setting up a Business Blog
Previous Instalment: Part 1 – the decision
At the end of the day, the decision had essentially been taken out of his hands. Daniel could see that his competitors were already benefiting from the type of industry exposure and customer contact that he had envisaged getting for his own company. And this was coming from their blogs.
However, this was NOT about keeping up with the Joneses – that would be pointless. To make it work for his business, he knew that he had to have a clear idea of what he wanted to do with the blog and what results he wanted it to achieve for him. He also needed to be clear about the people he was looking to attract to his blog – if he knew that then he could focus on writing articles that they’d want to come and read, and pass on others. This sharing of content was going to be key.
This was the business marketing side and he felt comfortable with it – after all, it was what he knew and was passionate about. However, he also needed to know how to really use blogs and get the best out of them. How could he engage with his readers, how to set up a blog, what software to use, how to get it into Google? So many questions and much of which he felt he knew little about.
He had to start somewhere. So he decided to check out what similar companies were doing online and how they were using blogs to promote their businesses. His searches on Technorati and Google’s blog search gave a lot of good starting points – he then followed the links they referred to and added the best ones to his RSS feed so that he would receive their news automatically. He could see RSS was going to be a real timesaver and made a mental note to make sure his blog would offer it too.
He also used Google to search on “Business Blogging” and that provided some excellent reference sources – the more information he had, the better equipped he would be to get the best results out of the effort he’d be putting into the blog.
Based on the advice there, he decided that the blog should appear as part of his current website as that would help promote all his other pages as well and that he would integrate it properly. It would give visitors to his site the ability to leave comments and ask questions directly – a great plus in developing closer relationships with them. It would also distribute and promote his information automatically for him, giving his company greater visibility.
Having looked at the alternatives, he decided that a blog system called Wordpress would probably offer the best solution – lots of future development potential and tried and tested on many thousands of blogs. In this instance, going with the crowd did seem to be the best option. He’d need to load it on his own server but it looked straightforward and, during his research, he’d also seen there were people around who could give help if he needed it.
He felt that his readers would appreciate a constant flow of articles but would probably feel overwhelmed if he tried to send information every day. He planned to post 2 to 3 times a week and worked from that standpoint. He also felt that the he had a handle on the sort of information they wanted – a mixture of industry information, links, informed opinion and an insight into what made him and his company tick. He also wrote out a big “Don’t try to sell!” post-it note to remind himself that the blog was not a direct sales tool. That he knew would just be a turn off to his readers.
Feeling much more comfortable about the organisation of the blog, it was now time to put that into action, get it set up and work out what elements would be important to make sure it had a successful launch.
Next Instalment: Part 3 – the launch
Tags: Blog Diary, Blog Marketing, Blog Planning, Business Blogs, Small Business Blogging
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
[...] Next Instalment: Part 2 – Planning the Blog Was this post useful? Then please share it! If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Tags: Business Blogging, Blog Diary, Reasons for blogging Recommended ReadingDiary of a successful business blog (Part 2 the preparation)What to call your Business BlogSpotlight on UK Blogs – 8 July 2007 [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
You present some compelling ideas. Will you discuss how to distinguish ones blog/website in a very crowded space? I work the employment market (Job Search Coach) where there is nothing new under the sun and the keywords are overpopulated. Those with highly trafficked sites have alliances and referrals. Without the traffic, newbies are left in the dust. Magic needed.
Thanks. R.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Interesting write up. I agree that it’s very important to do your research before starting up a new venture/blog. I discuss the very same type of things on my blog. It’s all about making your site 1. user friendly and 2. creating unique content that serves as great information to the reader. I also like how you mentioned overwhelming your readers with too much content. It’s important to post regularly, but not too much!
April 27th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Feeling much more comfortable about the organization of the blog, it was now time to put that into action, get it set up and work out what elements would be important to make sure it had a successful launch.. that would help promote all as well that would integrate it properly
April 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
The greatest strength of financial blogs is also a potential weakness. There is so much information that readers frequently rely upon the interpretation of the writer. Most people do not click through to the supporting links. They go to their favorite sources for information, and generally rely upon the interpretation of the writer.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
As I mention above, there are sound business reasons why you would want to have a blog, but to really understand what this is all about, I need to go deeper into what having a blog really would mean for your company and for your profits.
As business people we get conditioned into doing things that are established practices.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
When people think about making money with a blog, they tend to think about things like AdSense and affiliate links. You write good content, people come to your blog, people click on links, and you make a bit of money. How much money you make depends on how successfully you can multiply this process. However, for some entrepreneurs this method of monetizing a blog is just one part of a larger business model that is much more lucrative than advertising on its own.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Yes I think wordpress is the best solution for blogging. I am not that much a “follow the crowd” guy but in this case it makes sense. Especially the huge amount of useful plugins is a good reason for business bloggers to use it
June 5th, 2009 at 6:04 am
I second the motion of making sure that your content is not directly selling your products and/or services but rather provide information and resources that people are looking for.
Remember that success is not by chance, it’s by choice!
May 9th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
What an informative article. For someone who is thinking about starting a business blog, I agree that it is all about what you want to gain from blogging that is important. As a true believer in prior planning prevents poor performance, I think I have some work to do before launching my own. Watch this space though!