Business Blog Advice

This post is part of our blogging tips series for business bloggers.

One of the great things about publishing a business blog is that you can have it up and running quickly. So there is a tendency to rush forward and start cranking out content. I know this from experience. Blogging can be addictive, and you may find yourself publishing new material on a daily basis — or even twice a day.

Energy and enthusiasm are great ingredients for business blogging success. But slow down for a moment. Before you start blazing forth in all of your blogging glory, try to figure out what you hope to accomplish with your blog and how you will work toward that goal.

In the previous post in this series of tips I talked about your blogging purpose. Today we will take that a step further with a brief but helpful writing exercise. I promise it will be easy, so don’t use that “I don’t have time for homework” bit on me!

Get out a notebook or open up a Word document. Write down your primary blogging goal. Then write down how you plan to accomplish that goal. By taking this simple step, I think you’ll find that your wheels will start turning. And before you know it, you will have brain-stormed all kinds of stuff.

Here are some key items to include with your blogging plan:

• What is your blogging goal?
• Who is your audience, and what do they want?
• How can you help your audience?
• How often do you plan to blog?
• Will you invite others to be guest bloggers, or go it alone?
• How will you generate traffic to your blog?
• What topics will you cover on your blog? What categories do you need?

Start with that, and see where it takes you. The purpose of this exercise is to force yourself to think ahead. By doing so, you will have a much clearer picture of what you need to do .. and, ideally, how to do it.