10 Steps To Create a Business Blog

Creating a business blog is important for many things.  One reason is for internet marketing, especially if you are using an Inbound Marketing strategy.  It's important to blog consistently, like going to the gym a couple of times a week.  It's good for you.

Blogging for your business is the fundamental core of Inbound Marketing or content marketing for the internet.  Each post creates a new page that get's found be search engines.  Each post is about a single topic that answers your potential customers' questions.  

The first step is to have a blog system setup like in WordPress.  You want the website to automatically format each post for you so you don't have to do a lot of extra work on the blog listing page.

Step #1 - Choose a Topic

Choosing your topic can be easy (or hard).  One trick that I use is to simply answer questions that are asked by our clients every day.  For example, this post resulted from a customer who wanted to know how to create a business blog.  Instead of answering each client question individually, we can answer them in public for future clients.  More advanced techniques involve keyword research, buyer personas, and other things you can learn about later.

Step #2 - Research

This step is optional as you may already know everything you need to know to write your own post.  However, when  you're getting started it's helpful to see how others are writing.  Don't let someone else's content become yours!  In other words, write your own content and don't copy anyone else's.

Step #3 - Write

Just start writing and don't stop.  Don't think about anything other than a brain dump on your computer about the topic.  This should flow out and don't worry about grammar and punctuation.  We'll fix those things when we come back to it.  Remove all distractions, find your zen, and write at least 300 words but shoot for 500.  You can easily achieve this with a little practice.

Step #4 - Edit 

I like to wait a day between when I'm writing and when I'm copy editing.  These tasks use different brain functions and we don't want to interfere with your creativity.  Sometimes coming back the next day I'll end up rewriting the post completely and sometimes on a different topic.

Step #5 - Format

You'll want to use typography to make your content easily digestible.  Bullets, headings, italics, ...etc.  Break it up into something that you can scan and read sections of more easily.  Find an image that represents the content to help readers understand at a glance and insert it somewhere in the post.

Step #6 - Optimize

Optimizing your post is figuring out what keywords to use for your topic.  You may end up with a different keyword than when you started.  Using a tool like Yoast SEO will help with optimizing the post for search engines.  It is easy and only takes about an hour to learn.

Step #7 - Review

I like to do a final review of the entire post just to see how the whole thing looks as a finished product.  Does it seem like I have enough content or do I need more information?  Is it easy to understand at a glance what the post is about?

Step #8 - Publish

You've created a masterpiece now is the time to publish your post and let the world see it.  Make sure everything looks good on the website after it is live.

Step #9 - Share

It would be great if the right people just found the post using search engines.  Unfortunately this is getting harder to do and you need to share your post on social networks.  I usually share on at least 4.  LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  Depending on your demographic these could be different.

Step #10 - Let Us Do It For You

OK, I had the throw this in.  This is how we operate our blog and get potential customers on our website.  If you are a business that needs more help beating the competition let us know.  We can provide a free analysis and plan for your success.