It seems that a lot of companies are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by blogging and social media. This is not so true for small businesses. Only about 41 percent have their own interactive websites, according to a 2008 survey by small-business advisory service Warrillow & Co. Most small businesses understand the necessity of having a website but don’t take advantage of the e-commerce and marketing opportunities offered by the internet.
Small business blogs are a great way to connect with customers and drive traffic to your business website. Here are a couple of ways to get started:
- Be a reader of blogs. Read blogs specific to your line of business, see what others are saying. This is a great way to find inspiration to write. Comment on other’s blogs. Start having conversations with others in your industry. This is also a great way to keep up with what is going on in your industry.
- Don’t worry about writing long articles full of several concepts. Brief articles are actually more likely to be read than long ones. If you have several concepts you want to cover, break them up into several articles.
- Don’t make you blog and ad about you. Self-promoting blogs are not popular in the blogosphere. Give your readers useful information that they can use in their own lives. You have expertise that is valuable. Give your readers a reason to come to your blog.
- Stay true to your businesses purpose. Don’t go on personal rants. If you are writing a blog about internet marketing, don’t start ranting about politics or traffic or, well . . . you get the picture. It is great to be human and show your own personality but don’t rant. Ranting may be fine for some blogs, but not, typically for a business blog.
- Learn to write reasonably well. Read copyblogger for great tips on writing for business blogs.
- Run spellcheck on all your posts.
- Be consistent. I tend to read blogs that have regular posts. I tend not to read blogs that post sporadically, even from bloggers that I like. If I can’t count on new material on a regular basis, even if it is only once a week (e. g. every Monday) I usually pass.
- And . . . be committed. It takes a while to get into a flow and build traffic. Stick with it and it will pay off in the end.
