Providing Small Business Owners with Efficient and Effective Online Marketing Tips

How to write a business blog (when you don’t have time to start)

It seems everyone is telling you to write a business blog.

You need to connect! All the experts scream. You need to nurture relationships! You need to provide value! You need to educate and engage your customers about your products, without the hard sell! A good blog converts visitors into loyal customers!

I know! You scream back. But I don’t have time!

It can be hard to fit in yet another piece of online marketing when you’re flat out running your business but writing an effective business blog doesn’t have to take heaps of time.

Here are some quick tips on how to start a business blog:

1.    Don’t worry about the words

Editing your words is important but you can’t get hung up on perfect prose. The quickest way to write an effective business blog is to write like you talk. Imagine you’re talking to a friend. They’re interested, but they don’t have all day.

2.    Prepare list of blog topics in advance

Finding topics that are interesting to your audience is half the battle of writing a business blog. Brainstorm topics your audience wants to know about. Consider – what are your customers’ pain points and problems? What topics would give them the most value? If you’re not sure, ask them! Send out a quick survey or use your social media pages to ask your readers.

3.    Invite conversation on your business blog

Some of the most effective business blogs are short, averaging 300-500 words. They throw an idea or opinion out and they invite discussion. People love it when you ask their opinion, and it’s a great way to build a community around your business blog. Check out these great tips (by Problogger) on effective ways to get readers to respond to your business blog.

4.    Consider SEO and identify your keywords

Your list of topics will help you find the right keywords for your business blog. If you use the right keywords in your blog headings, content and meta tags, you’ll not only attract your readers’ attention, you’ll attract Google’s attention too. You’ll have your very own search engine optimised (SEO) blog.

5.    Automate the backend management

Don’t waste time trying to manually handle lots of different systems and plugins yourself. Get a good CMS, like Wordpress or Hubspot, that’s easy to use and can be integrated with your CRM and your other inbound marketing tools.

6.    Plan it, track it, improve it

Testing, tracking and measuring should be part of any marketing activity. You don’t want to spend time writing a business blog that doesn’t bring you business! Use good analytical tools and review the impact of your blog content so you can make your business blog more efficient and more effective.

What are your time saving tips for blog writing? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments below.
Casey @ Cloud Marketing

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