12 Essential Guidelines of Blogging for Small Businesses
Marketing is of reasons behind the popularity of almost large businesses. A good marketing strategy will lead a business to success. But how successful are startups or small businesses in dire financial straits? Otherwise, society is more and more developing, people must update their knowledge consistently. So that information demand is really necessary. And the internet is the most effective information search tool which almost people use for researching. Monthly, there are millions of user view blog posts. Therefore, businesses take advantage of the blog to promote your business stronger and better day by day. And let’s use guidelines of blogging for small businesses to make a great blog.
1. Why is blog important to businesses?
A blog is a place where business can share knowledge about the industry and relevant information for readers who need it. Publishing blog posts show leading in this industry and affirm the value of your business.
Businesses should research and provide free various information frequently so that your blog has to be a useful information source that readers come and return when they have demand. That is a free present you give your customers before buying goods.
When they join our blog in a long time, they may be aware of the product or service you are offering and they can convey the strengths of our products or services to current customers as well as potential customers indirectly without pressure. This helps customers better understand your company, inspire products and maintain customer loyalty. Then you have positioned your brand into their minds and they will become your potential customers. Maybe they are not ready to spend money right now to buy your products, but they will recommend it to their acquaintances when they are heard your goods.
Blogs can help you better understand the demand of customer needs and their preferences. After that, you can use this information to develop new products or service and adjust existing products.
Websites with blogs are more likely to appear than websites without blogs. In a recent survey, blogs were voted as the fourth tool to generate sales. Like any other marketing tools, blogs are an effective way of marketing when it was used properly. Marketing is one of the business activities. Inference from a survey, blog is important for businesses.
Using a blog to collect contact information of readers by asking visitor sign in your website via email or phone number. Then you can send more communications and promotions about your business to these addresses.
You can use a blog to give instructions on how to use new features of the product instead of advertising product in an ordinary way. When customer notice differences from others, they will feel interested and the needs arise.
2. Conduct keyword research
You write content about businesses, but it must answer questions that people seek. Before starting to write a topic for your business blog, you should take a moment to discover the reader mind, study demographic factors so that article content meets the demand of reader.
Topics that should be written about businesses such as product, success, failure, experience, interesting stories when starting a business.
Besides, readers often look for evaluations about product or service. Therefore, you should build a great relationship with customers and take advantage of the evaluation to bring your business into credit.
At the same time, keyword researching also gives you new ideas to improve the content of the blog.
Researching blog of competitors to find out the difference between your business and theirs. When studying competitors need to research from overall to detail such as content style, formatting, design, user experience, keywords, topics covered, user interaction.
3. Appealing title
In this day and age, everyone is busy but there is so much information. Do you think readers will sit down and read your blog posts? When you read the newspaper, usually you will read the title before deciding whether or not to read the content? So is the blog. Blogging not only conveys useful information to people who love you but also to your customers, strangers. You must think carefully when deciding the title of the blog.
The compelling title can meet the information of readers. The titles help convey the message of the business, maintain the interest of the reader and build their desire for the product or service. Usually, the length of a title between 6 words and 13 words is more appealing.
4. Quality
Information is getting more and more and the speed increases very fast. For our blog to stand out from other competitors, the quality must be guaranteed. Blogs will receive high marks when content meets the needs of readers with accurate grammar and spelling. Valuable posts with many interactive people like, comment, share, etc.
Regular publishing article is essential for your blog to succeed. However, do not rely on short articles to attract readers. Although there is nothing wrong with each short posts but our goal is to provide truly valuable articles for our readers. Blog must play step-by-step guide role to explain and solve specific problems. Generally, blog posts have the best rank contain over 2000 words.
The knowledge that your blog supply to readers may be changed with the times. So you must update information in your post continuously to make sure it right in spite of the change. There are a lot of blog posts and do not let readers have the opportunity to compare blog of competitors with yours.
There is a problem to keep in mind that the blog must not be used to generate revenue that provides information to readers, affirming the value of the business. A lot of advertising dollars for the blog are wastes when there is no useful information on the blog. It will be counterproductive for your business to use a blog to push product and advertisement. This prevents readers from their process of finding information.
5. Quantity
Quality is the most important but quantity is also needed. Your blog has many articles, lots of information, the search engine will see our Web more active than other competitors. There are many opportunities for the web to be discovered when people search and find a lot of topics.
If there are few posts on your blog, readers will think that it is a newly formed business without researching the history of the business. The returning sight of original aim, your business must be expert in the line of business with the abundant information resource.
6. Featured image
Adding photos or videos for readers to increase interaction with the page. Our attention span is very short, and you will work more effectively when using both hemispheres. About 65% of information is stored when images are available and only 10% of the information is stored when there is no image. At the same time, the image makes the main information in the article outstanding, making it easier for readers to remember the content.
On the other hand, images make your blog vivid without boredom. Readers are attracted by your blog and stay at blog longer.
7. Blog schedule
Posting article regularly but not continuously. If you post continuously, you will not guarantee content quality. If there is no nothing for a long time, your site will become old. According to some studies about enterprises, you should post 4 articles a week. Access efficiency of this business increases 3.5 times as compared to the others that do not these things. It is recommended to set a specific schedule for blogging.
If you already had a strong social media, let consider the number of times for blog. Don’t let the blog take up all the time and ruin your business.
8. Build influencer network
Your business is young and has few followers. So you should start connecting with influencers to get your words out. You will give them products of your business to exchange for a blog post reviewing. But that person must be admired or followed by your target audience.
The seamy side of marketing is everyone feels bored about the normal advertisement. According to research, An American is in contact average of 5000 advertisements a day. They are unconscious to skip the advertisement. They are confused about whether the product is really good or not. They need individual experiences and share to us the truth.
9. Professional contributor
You can hire a professional writing collaborator. You will pay them to write a content article for your blog that attracts readers. That process is called content marketing. However, when we start hiring an outsider, we have to make sure that the people are good and their style must be the same as mine.
A lot of old topics make your blog bored and it is time for some innovation. Contributor will open your mind by a new outlook on topics relating to your business – Cost may be saved if you know the way of using internal human resource. They are employees who comprehend your business completely. They will come up with new ideas which are objective as well as correct with your business. It economizes costs effectively.
10. Optimize for SEO
We usually only see the information about the top search results. So make your article top of the search results by thinking about words that readers can enter into a search engine that lead to your blog. Then repeating those keywords in your article at the title, introduction, and conclusion of the blog and many times in the middle of the paragraph, but make sure the content doesn’t make the reader feel weird.
Your blog posts must be written proper grammar and spelling. If your posts are read by a lot of people, smart search engines will evaluate your blog grade higher.
11. Include CTA
Each blog should be ended with a call to action (CTA). Attracting them to where you want them to go. Choose a meaningful CTA based on the content of the blog such as a photo, a button or a link for users to act.
A call-to-action link to connect with your business social media is useful. A link with the compelling title will make readers curious and click to button voluntarily that they do not feel duty-bound. Because of curiosity, readers will continue to discover all about your business. The more they understand your business, the more they trust your product and buy it.
12. Measure your success
When you start a business, blog following is essential to notice where are you? Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges will appear in the measurement. From here you will know the way of balancing the amount of time and resource logically. Let’s develop what kind of content is doing well and adjust strategy suited for the status of your business.
Conclusion
The above 11 criterions are essential knowledge for every startup or small business. They answer these questions such as “ How important is a blog for business? and What do you need to use it effectively? ”. Each criterion is a problem that you will come up against difficulties. However, the blog is an easier way to lead your business to success. Comprehending benefit of the blog, you develop researched ideas into good posts with a special title. You should write a lot of posts with a permitted level. Quality of posts will be grow featured image. You can not do everything without help from everyone. Contributors will create a variety of your blog and famous people will keep readers longer. Using button of CTA to change visitors into your customers. Measuring your blog to identify the position of your business via SEO or other tools. What are you waiting for? Let’s improve your blog and develop your business website with step-by-step performance based on mentioned criteria. After an interval of time, success will be more than you expected.
