Regardless of what online business you want to start, finding other ways to create an extra income is challenging. The online world is very competitive and is not for the faint heart. Content is everything and if you can’t rise to the occasion, you will fall hard face first. Giving your business the edge it needs requires a successful business blog. Business blogging does not only enhance your inbound marketing but also lures prospects in an organic and natural way.
This post focuses on how to create a blog for free and make money for both startups and existing blogs. It has essential steps that if followed to the later will give you great results for a successful business blog. Although you come across challenges establishing a great business blog this shouldn’t deter yours from accomplishing your set goals. Read through for more information. Before settling on a topic, ensure that it carries your strength or it is something you are passionate about. A great business blog requires a great foundation and that is the topic.
Blogging for business is a great ingredient for creating a great marketing strategy. The post will break down steps to create a great business blog to turn your prospects into clients or business partners. These steps apply to both new and established blogs. And with no further ado, here are the steps to creating a successful business blog:
Table of Contents
1. Find Your Writing Strength and Topic
A great blog requires a great foundation and that is the topic. This covers your keyword research, content, message, voice, tone and structure. Before settling on a topic, ensure that it carries your strength or it is something you are passionate about. A great blog requires a great foundation and that is the topic. This covers your keyword research, content, message, voice, tone and structure. To know your passion, here are a few questions to help you know whether you are on the right track:
- What moves or excites you?
- Do you have a long-term goal?
- How well do you understand your topic?
- Is it unique?
- Is your message powerful and clear?
- Is it a sustainable topic?
- Do you have a target audience in mind?
2. Understand Your Target Audience
This requires a bit of research to find out what your target readership like. This also means that you have to speak their language in terms of their taste and preferences. Centering your small business blog on your business also means they’ll eventually be customers or clients. Finding out what your audience is looking for gives you an upper hand on how to approach your business blog. Find out what your prospects want and why they would it delivered to them.
This information helps you to create a customer or reader persona in mind. Identify who you want to target and why. Find out about their issues and how you intend to help them solve those issues. People don’t want to be reminded of their problems they you rather have solutions to their problems. Once you’ve established your target market writing solution-oriented content is really easy.
3. Make a Wise Choice on Domain and Hosting
Your website theme, design, content, and structure speak volumes about your business. You have to be really careful when choosing them. These elements help to tell your audience about your business and you don’t want them to get the wrong small business ideas. For an already established blog, constant updates are important to
get rid of old, outdated and obsolete content. While making updates, ensure that they are responsive.
When trying to find a domain, research on appropriate keywords people use to find your products and services. Keep your domain name consistent to remain relevant to your audience. It is advisable to purchase your domain and set up hosting through the same company as this makes the setup easier. Hosting should not be taken lightly as it will greatly affect your lobbying experience. For business blogs, I strongly recommend WordPress.org than WordPress.com.
4. Establish Your Goals
Before venturing into business for blog purpose, you need to know what you intend to get from it and what your audience stands to gain. Like any investment, it will take time and a lot of effort. What do you hope to achieve? If you don’t know the reason behind your blog then you don’t have to start it as you will be headed to a straight failure. You need to know what your long and short-term goals are.
After soul searching and you have decided that to want to start your business blog, consistency is what you need to remain relevant in this field. Find out what timelines will work for you; whether you want to publish daily, weekly or on a monthly basis and stick with it.
5. Create Relevant Content to Establish Rapport
After setting up your blog it is time to settle down and start writing. A good idea is to start blogging about niche-specific topics to establish rapport with your audience. Look for new approach and trends of a specific industry to ensure that your blogs are up to date with the current affairs. Community needs and market indicators will also help you stay on top of the game.
Have a blogging strategy that will help you build content based on current content that can be distributed through your social channels. You can do this by holding a contest and blogging about it to allow subscribers to spread the word about it. The aim is to grow an audience while retaining current subscribers as faithful followers. Readers will trust you if they find to have professionally written content.
Conclusion
Use your blog to reach out to numerous prospects as it is also a great marketing tool. Anyone with great zeal and passion can run a successful business. My advice to you if you are determined to start and run a blog make sure you give it your whole as this will help you reach your set goals and ambitions. However, it won’t be a walk in the park since this is a very competitive industry and it fluctuates all the time. Just ensure that your blogs are up to date and you will never go wrong.
Here are a few more topics that you shouldn’t miss:
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