Business Blog Advice

Business blogging offers plenty of benefits to those who use it. It adds value to your website. It expands your web presence, increases your search engine visibility, encourages interaction from readers, drives more traffic to your site … the list goes on.

But it’s not always easy. Sometimes writer’s block rears its ugly head, bringing your blogging efforts to a screeching halt. You sit down to write a blog entry but nothing comes to mind. You know the importance of a consistent publishing schedule, but you’ve simply run out of ideas. Your last blog entry was a long time ago. Things have become stale.

Don’t worry. The following list of business blogging content ideas will keep you going for a long time. There’s no limit to the number of blog entries you can create from these idea generators!

1. Recycle your email content to create blog entries from it. If you’re like most modern business owners, you probably do a lot of emailing. Much of this can be re-purposed as blog entry material, especially any Q&A emails about your business.
2. Add a small box / form to the sidebar area of your blog, where your visitors can type in their questions. They click the “send” button and the question is sent to you by email. You can answer their question right on the blog. You’ll never be strapped for blog entry ideas if people keep asking question about your business / products / services.
3. Use a keyword research tool like the one offered by Google to identify a list of key phrases related to your business. That’s how I came up with the idea for this article. I saw that people were looking for blog entry ideas through the search engines … so I gave them some! Why rack your brain to get inside the heads of your audience, when you can find out exactly what they’re researching?
4. Follow the media. Nothing influences Internet search behavior like the media. What’s being talked about in your industry or niche? What are the hot topics? How can create blog entries around it?
5. Create some Google Alerts so you’ll have an endless supply of blog content ideas and writing material. This idea ties back to the previous one about keeping tabs on the news. You can set up a Google Alert for some keyword or phrase related to your business, and you’ll be emailed daily or weekly as relevant news breaks online (such as news stories, press releases and the like).
6. Look to your own business for blog entry ideas and subject matter. How kinds of products or services to you provide? What are the important components of those products or services? Break this up into informational entries to educate your audience. It’s great for search engine visibility as well.
7. If you’re really stuck for blogging ideas, but you want to keep your blog chugging along, check out our writing services.
8. Create a series of entries on some kind of theme related to your business. Top 10 reasons to [blank] … 15 steps to better [blank] … 21 things you should know about [blank]. Each item in the series is a separate post. You get the idea. This is also the type of blog entry that gets linked to a lot from other bloggers, which sends extra traffic your way!
9. Get out a piece of paper and start brainstorming for blogging ideas related to your business. Write down your products and services. Then write down the ways those products solve people’s problems. Jot down some of the special features or benefits of your products / services. Don’t edit yourself … just writer freely. You’ll have a bunch of blog entry ideas by the time you’re done.
10. Do you have colleagues who are enthusiastic about blogging? Invite them to be guest authors on your blog. You could even set them up as a regular contributor. Most blog programs have some kind of “Add an Author” feature for this very purpose. They get extra exposure. You get extra blog content.
11. Conduct an interview in Q&A format on your blog. Talk to experts in some field that’s related to your business. Invite them to do an online interview and email the questions to them. When you get their answers back, publish the whole thing onto your blog.
12. Look to other bloggers in your industry for blog content ideas and inspiration. What are other people talking about? Which seem to be the hottest topics in your industry or niche?
13. Do you know of any web forums related to your business? If so, visit those forums and see which topics of discussion seem to be the most popular.
14. Do a search on Google News for keywords and phrases related to your business. This will bring up press releases, news articles and the like — another great source for blog entry ideas and guidance.
15. Visit an article distribution website (EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, etc.) to see if you can find some quality material to use. If you’re blog is related to business or marketing, you can also visit the Free Business Articles section of our website to find material.

So there you have them … more blogging content ideas than you can shake a stick at. Bookmark this page or print it out for future reference. It will help fuel your blog entries for a long, long time!

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

“At the end of the day, we must learn to think outside the box and leverage our knowledge capital to come up with value-added solutions that are robust and scalable.”

Do you hate this kind of buzzword-driven gibberish as much as I do? Well, guess what. We are not alone. This kind of language has only one purpose — to impress the reader / listener with the speaker’s / writer’s grasp of corporate lingo. It is NOT, however, an effective way to communicate.

Nor does this kind of writing style have any place on your business blog.

Look at the most successful business blogs online today (the ones with the most traffic, the most comments, and the most buzz). One thing they have in common is the blogger’s ability to speak plainly, as if speaking to a friend. Their blog writing styles may vary, but they all get to the point quickly. Of course, this isn’t the only reason these bloggers do well. You also need something interesting to say. But saying it clearly and effectively certainly helps!

The Elements of Style is a writing guidebook that’s popular among fiction writers. But many of the lessons can be applied to blog writing as well. For example, take a look at one of my favorite gems, the call to omit needless words. In the before-and-after examples, you can easily imagine corporate jargon being revised in the same way. And so much the better!

Your business blog has the potential to break down walls between you and your audience. In turn, this can help you attract new customers and grow your business beyond your expectations. But your blog will not succeed in this way if it’s full of corporate speak.

We all have different blog writing styles because we are all individuals. I’m not saying we should all think, write and communicate the same. I’m saying that people will respond to your blog more favorably if you strip away the “fluff” and speak to them like a human being. That’s the essence of a strong blog writing style.

Related tips: Writing Clearly and Simply

by Courtland Bovee

Millions of blogs fight for readership online (over 75 million by some counts), with thousands more being created every day. Making yours stand above the rest may seem like a daunting task, but here are ten suggestions for making your blog posts stand out from the crowd.

1. Write each post title so it grabs the reader’s attention. It is the first thing someone reads, and it should get your reader’s attention right away. Your title should both pique the reader’s interest and be informative. Do not write “Business Writing Advice”; instead, say “The Best-Kept Secret to Reducing Your Business Writing Worries.” Longer titles have the advantage of describing in detail what your post is about; 8-12 words are a good range.

2. Keep sentences short and clear. A little goes a long way. Readers are busy people and they will not spend hours detangling complex syntax or sifting through blocks of text. Also, use strong language. Start a new paragraph every few sentences, and limit each post to 250 words, if possible. If you cannot write it in under 250 words, split it into two entries.

3. Break up the text. Use numbered lists, bullet points, and subheadings to make your posts easy to scan. Lots of white space on the page is a good thing-it allows your reader to take mental breaks and let the knowledge soak in. In addition, with the inevitable clutter of banner ads and side text, this technique puts some distance between your writing and all those distractions.

4. Keep current. No one wants to read old news. Your job is to stay up-to-date so your readers do not have to themselves. Read newspapers. Scour the web for references. For example, if you write a blog about business communication, subscribe to Google News Alerts using keywords related to the field, such as blogs, podcasting, instant messaging, business letters, memos, and business reports, so you will always be well informed. Posting items from last month or last year will lose your reader’s interest faster than you can say “Enron.”

5. Be bold. Timidity is an easy path to anonymity. Do not be afraid to create and state your opinions. Of course, there are some situations in which objectivity rules-but you have to give people a reason to read this blog by you and not by the person next door.

6. Be accurate. If you make a statement, be prepared to back it up. Know what your sources are and quote them accurately. Misinformation spreads like wildfire online; do not be the spark that sets it off or the wind that fans it.

7. Contribute to the conversation. Links are great-but then what? Do not just post links to the same tired sites, offer your reader something new. Contribute to the conversation. Your goal is to be the site to which everyone else is linking-so you had better have something worth writing about.

8. Stay focused. Once you have defined the theme of your blog, stick to it. A blog about piggy banks has no business posting about the latest innovation in alternative energy. Such a deviance will only confuse your reader and chip away at your virtual authority.

9. Use key words liberally. Keywords are, well, key. Harness your blog’s search engine potential by dousing your title and post with effective keywords that will help interested parties find your page in the vast, muddled blogosphere. This is one of the most important elements of getting your blog read-go at it with gusto.

10. Be consistent. Keep a schedule and stick to it. Post frequently-at least several times per week if you want to increase your potential of attracting new readers. Let your blog languish for weeks without updates and your audience will move on to fresher ground.

Maintaining an informative blog that people want to read takes hard work and good writing skills. Find what makes your writing unique-and flaunt it for all it is worth.

About The Author
Courtland L. Bovee, one of America’s leading instructors in clear and effective communication, co-authors several leading college-level texts with John V. Thill, a prominent communications consultant and current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Global Communication Strategies. Their website, Business Communication Headline News, the #1 business communication site on the web, is at http://www.businesscommunicationheadlinenews.com

More helpful tips on writing a blog

Many times in the past, I’ve written about the search engine visibility benefits of using a business blog. Because of this, blog SEO (search engine optimization) is a popular topic among business bloggers. So here we go with another lesson on the SEO aspect of blogging.

In this post, we will learn how to create a content plan that helps us blog about topics important to our ideal audience. We will identify the topics, we will integrate them into our blog content plan, and then we will write about them.

From a technical standpoint, blogging is easy. Because of this simplicity, you can grow your business blog steadily over time. Consistent growth and content volume are two of the top-five ranking factors with most major search engines.

But many bloggers find this notion intimidating. “What do I write about? Where do I come up with ideas? How can I possibly create a blog post two or three times per week?”

Here’s the good news. For most business blogs, the content and ideas already exist — you just have to round them up and put them on paper. Here’s how to use a keyword research tool to determine which topics are most important to your key audience.

Step 1. Identify Blog Theme
Start by identifying the main topic of your business blog. Usually, this will be related to your products or services. Write this main topic down on a piece of paper.

Step 2. Choose Keyword Tool
Now you will need to select a keyword / key phrase research tool. I use and recommend both WordTracker.com and KeywordDiscovery.com. There is a free version of WordTracker’s tool available at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Step 3. Begin Key Phrase Research
Enter your main topic into the search tool and hit “Enter” — or whatever button runs the report. In the example image below, I’ve used the topic / phrase “working capital.” This topic is relevant to one of my client’s business.

Step 4. Create Spreadsheet
Once you generate a list of key phrases based on your main topic, copy the results into an Excel spreadsheet (the best program to use for this task). Then go through and delete any phrases / topics that are irrelevant to your business. Do the same with redundant phrases. The image below shows my cleaned up spreadsheet, with redundant and irrelevant phrases removed.

Step 5. Add Spreadsheet Columns
Now you can simply add a “completion” column to your spreadsheet, and mark each topic complete when you have written about it.

Step 6. Start Blogging
Look at each phrase and ask yourself, “How can I blog about this topic in order to (A) educate my target audience and (B) demonstrate the knowledge capital of my company?” The spreadsheet represents the topics your audience wants to learn about, as indicated by their online search behavior. So give them what they want!

Step 7. Expand, Repeat and Vary
Now that you have blogged about topics important to your audience, what do you do next? You keep going, of course. You can continue the process by revisiting topics from a different angle, or by expanding your list of topics / phrases.

What’s the Point?
This may seem like a lot of effort, but once you get going it’s fairly simple and straightforward. But even if it were difficult, it would be worth the effort. Think about what you’re doing here. You are creating a library of information that directly corresponds to the topics your audience wants to know about. You are laying the groundwork for future search engine visibility for a broad range of relevant phrases. And you are demonstrating your expertise on topics that are important to your audience.

Now that’s a smart way to use a business blog!

If you need some helping getting started, check out our Internet copywriter service for quality content. We can create pages and pages of keyword-rich blog content to save you time and energy. We offer custom plans for long-term writing projects as well.

Elsewhere on this blog, you’ve heard me stress the importance of writing helpful or interesting content on your business blog. In this post, I’d like to offer some specific tactics that go beyond this basic premise.

Tips for Business Blog Writing 

• Write in your own voice. Don’t try to impress people with your vocabulary. The best blogs convey quality information in a conversational style.
• Write each blog post so it can stand on its own. Each post should offer value on an individual level (in addition to being  part of a greater whole).
• Include your key phrase in blog post titles (when applicable) and throughout the body of your post. Do this in a natural way — avoid keyword overuse, or “stuffing.”
• Link between blog posts as needed to help readers navigate and find related information.
• Whenever possible, use keywords in your hyperlinks to make them more descriptive for people and more effective for blog visibility / SEO.
• Include a brief call-to-action at the end of posts, when applicable. “To learn more about this new service, please email us at…”

We begin this lesson with a reminder that readers come first, and search engines second. When posting new content to your business blog, try to create something of value for the reader. Try to create blog posts that are interesting, helpful, entertaining or otherwise engaging. Do this, and half the search engine “battle” is already won.

When writing content for your business blog, limit each blog post to a single idea. Blog posts should be easy to digest in one reading. Shorter posts are more eyeball-friendly and will likely help you grow your readership, especially if those posts are engaging as well. My personal rule of thumb is to write more than 100 words (for value) but below 500 words (for brevity).

From a search engine standpoint, it’s also better to create a higher number of short posts. Most blog programs save each of your blog posts as a separate page. So if you blog once a day for a year, you’ll have 365 pages of web content. That’s a lot of keyword-rich content to educate people and search engines alike!

Also, be sure the content of each blog post is a direct extension of the blog post’s title. Search engines robots will compare the content of your blog post to the post’s title. So the key phrase in your title should be carried over into the actual blog post.

When you think about it, this should happen automatically. If, for example, you were blogging about a new software product for bankers, a good title might be “Bank Software: What to Ask Before Buying.” This title should then match the body content of the blog post. Maybe this blog post would go on to list the top-ten questions to ask before choosing a banking software program. The page’s content would be a direct extension of the title. Good for readers, and good for search engines!