Business Blogging – Strategy You Can Wrap Around Your Business

Business blogging has become the preferred marketing strategy for many businesses.

More and more people flock to the internet to satisfy their information needs and blogs provide a low cost, yet powerful framework for individuals, businesses and organizations to market and boost their growth.

In this article, you’ll find tips to boost your business blogging and grow your business.

Research Your Market Extensively

Just like how you conduct a market research for your offline brick and mortar business, so should you for your business blog.

Researching for your blog shouldn’t be a complicated task. Have in mind the following, your target customers/audience, the type of products/services you deal with, competitors and the state of your industry in general.

Keyword research should form the basis of your blog’s market research.

How do consumers find information?

Before you create content for your blog, start by finding out which keywords or key phrases your target audience or customers use to find information related to your products, services or industry.

Use Google keyword planner or any other keyword tools you prefer for this purpose. Base your blog content on what users are searching for.

The type of content, the voice in your message, your blog design, your writing style and everything on your blog should be tailored to suit your target audience or customers, and their needs.

A competitor research should also be part of your market research. Look at what other businesses are doing in terms of blogging and online marketing.

Analyze their blogs and websites to find weaknesses such as information gaps, low-quality content, poor blogging style, etc. Use such information to make your blog offering better.

SEO-Spyglass is a good tool for analyzing your competitors.

Market research should always be a continuous process. The web is very dynamic and keeps on changing with each passing day.

Always monitor for industry trends. Monitor and analyze to find room for impxfrovement.

Develop a Content Strategy

What type of content will feature on your blog?

When and how frequent will you be publishing?

Will you be publishing personally or do you plan to hire content writers and editors?

Have such questions in mind when thinking of a blog content strategy.

Based on your market research, you should figure out what type of content your target audience loves to interact with.

Do they love videos, podcasts, reports, white papers, articles, etc.?

Use easy to understand content that your blog audience will enjoy interacting with.

Develop a blog publishing schedule. This should guide you on the days and times you’ll be publishing. Always stick to your publishing schedule. Develop a habit; your readers will also learn when to expect new content on your blog.

For many startups and small businesses, the budget might be a factor. But if your budget allows, you can also outsource some tasks like content writing, blog design, etc.

Just make sure to outsource to people who are able to align and reflect the values you stand for.

Fill your blog with top-notch content: Useful information that addresses the needs of your customers, readers, clients, etc. by providing solutions to their problems. That’s the bigger picture of content marketing.

Blog Promotion – A Continuous Process

Blogging is a long-term strategy. You should set long-term goals for your blog and then engage in continuous blog promotion activities to make your blog more visible.

The internet is very large and your blog might disappear into oblivion if you do not engage in relevant blog promotion activities. A fine way of Blog promotion also boosts brand awareness.

Have in mind these two things;

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• SMO (Social Media Optimization)

These are important for any business on the internet.

In the early days of your blog, SMO is what will boost you and get you out there in front of relevant people.

SEO, on the other hand, is more long-term.

You must, however, incorporate SEO from the start to achieve positive results in future.

You should network with other bloggers in your niche. Comment on their blogs and look for guest posting opportunities.

Be active on relevant social networking sites. Engage in conversations that relate to your industry, answer questions that bring out your expertise, etc.

Keep it simple and minimize the sales aspect of your business.

Also, remember to visit relevant message boards and forums in your niche. These are also good to bring out your expertise and grow your authority.

For SEO, make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Learn SEO. You do not necessarily have to hire SEO companies if you understand how to do it.

For your on-site SEO, use relevant tools and plugins like Yoast SEO, Google XML Sitemap, Google Analytics, etc.

Once your blog is fully optimized, engage in relevant link building activities like Guest posting, Content Promotion, Blog commenting, etc.

It’s important to note that blog promotion is a continuous process. You should always monitor your progress to see what’s working for you and what can be discarded. Focus on techniques that yield positive results for you.

Monitor your progress, Measure your results, Rinse and Repeat

Just like any online marketing strategy, you need to be flexible and dynamic. You need to identify opportunities for improvements to your blog and the effectiveness of your content.

Monitor the performance of your blog using key performance indicators like blog comments, incoming links, social media traffic, search engine traffic, behaviors of visitors on site, brand mentions, etc.

You can then analyse results using Conjointly’s Time Series Analysis for example, in order to extract meaningful statistics and other characteristics of the data.

Use these indicators to improve your social media tactics, blog content strategies, search engine optimization, etc. The key is to identify what is working and improve on it further.

Based on results, don’t waste a lot of resources on what isn’t producing desirable outcomes for your blog and business.

Instead, direct your resources to promote activities that are yielding results for you.

Business blogging is like a marathon. It takes time. Set relevant goals, and then develop a step by step action plan to drive you towards your goals. And monitor progress.

These are simple yet sure blogging strategies that can take your business to a higher level. Start using them today and grow your business.