A business blog should benefit your company and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your field. A lot of planning and work goes into achieving these goals, but when you make the most of your business blog the payout is worth all of the work. Here is how to tell if you are making the most of your small business blog.
Give Your Blog a Purpose
The purpose is the reason something exists. To determine the use of your business blog you need to decide why you have a small business blog. Identify what the people who read your blog get out of it and what you want your readers to get out of your blog.
Let Customers Get to Know Your Brand
A business blog is a way for customers, and potential customers, to learn more about your brand and the industry. A blog is a platform to discuss your brand’s values, environmental goals, community service endeavors and anything else that sets your brand apart from your competition. When readers know more about your brand, they will be more likely to do business with your brand. The purpose of a business blog is not to make a sale, but rather to gain a customer.
Set Blog Goals
A business blog is part of a long game. Posts published today will deliver results weeks, months or even years from now. A successful blog will have measurable goals that you can quickly identify. Once you know what your business blog goals are, you need to figure out a plan to achieve those goals.
Choose Realistic Goals
A goal should be something you can feasibly achieve. Establishing lofty goals that are beyond the reach of what you can realistically do is setting yourself up for failure. At the same time goals need to be aggressive and challenging. Work and effort need to go into achieving a goal.
Zero in on Goals
From building your brand to attracting new customers or providing customer support there are a lot of functions a business blog can fulfill. Determine what areas of your business you want to improve and if your blog is a feasible method to achieve these goals. A business blog can have multiple goals at once. Be careful not to spread yourself too thin and have too many goals in play at once.
Assign Measurable Goals
Goals need a due date, and there needs to be a measurable metric that equals success. For instance, if your goal is to attract new customers assign a number to how many customers you want to add and the timeframe you plan to add these customers. Tools such as Google Analytics can help you measure results to determine success. To determine if you reached your goal you need to have milestones that you can use to identify success.
Create a Posting Schedule
How often you post to your blog varies from one business to another. A news focused blog may require daily posts, while a slower paced industry may need one to three posts per week. Find the balance between providing useful content and overwhelming your readers with too frequent posts.
Be Consistent
Establish a consistent schedule to post content to your site. If only posting a couple of days each week, post on the same days. Evaluate previous posts and determine which had the most views, shares, and comments to determine the ideal times. This approach requires some historical data to review. If there is no data to help guide when you should post content, start keeping track and adjust your posting schedule as you identify the best times.
Bring in Help
If time is an issue and you are only able to add new content to your blog once a month or less often, consider outsourcing the writing. Whether you are pressed for time, or if you struggle to write solid content bringing in help can be a smart move.
Implications of Inconsistent Posts
Regular posts are necessary to build a rapport with readers. If you go for long periods of time without posts, readers will assume there is nothing new and stop checking in. Losing readers will reduce the reach and impact of your blog. Infrequent posts will also send the message that your brand is inconsistent and unreliable. Even if that may be true when it comes to posting blogs, readers and customers may assume that is true of your brand as a whole.
Get the Most From Your Business Blog
A purpose, goals, and consistency all contribute to a successful business blog. When appropriately executed a blog can help customers learn more about your brand and develop a relationship with your company.
Thank you for reading our blog! How can we help you? Contact us today.
