Business Blog Advice

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

If you are a one-man or one-woman business, then the choice for blog writer is an easy one. You’ll have to do it yourself (our outsource it to a blog writing service). In this case, you may ask yourself if blogging is even right for your business to begin with.

But what if you are part of a larger organization? For example, let’s say you are the marketing / communications person for a company of 150 people, and you want to start a company blog in order to grow your web presence and attract new business. In that case … who is going to write the blog?

I ask this question, because you have many candidates to choose from in a business of this size. So it’s important to choose the right person (or people) for the job.

Who you choose to write your company blog is an important consideration, because the writer alone will determine the blog’s success or failure. Sure, it helps to have something interesting to talk about on a company blog — like a truly popular product or service. But in the end, it’s the blog author who makes it sink or swim.

• The person chosen to write your company blog must:
• Be passionate about the company
• Be a decent writer
• Be enthusiastic about the idea of blogging

These are the absolute essentials for your blog writing candidate. You probably have a few criteria of your own in mind.

If you choose the wrong person for the job of maintaining the company blog, it will be off to a shaky start from the beginning. But if you take the time to find the ideal candidate, you will have much greater success. It may surprise you to find out who is up for the job.

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.

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

Okay, first thing’s first. Before you can get off and running with your business blog, you need to define your blogging purpose. In other words, you need to know the reason you are blogging in the first place … and it should be a good reason.

Here are some examples of bad reasons to start a business blog:

• Because my competitors are blogging
• Because a buddy of mine said I should start
• Because search engines love blogs

Now here are some good reasons to launch a business blog:

• I have a lot of information to share with my readers
• I can genuinely help my audience succeed with [blank]
• I love to write and want to put that to use for my business
• A blog is the perfect tool to help me grow my business online

Define the blogging objectives you hope to achieve along the way. Define the audience to whom you are writing. Define your blogging purpose and how it relates back to your business.

If you do these things in advance, it will be a lot easier to keep your business blog going over the long haul. When you know where you’re going, the journey becomes a lot easier. On the contrary, when rush off without a plan or a purpose, it’s easy to get lost.

Here’s an easy way to define your blogging purposes. Write it down in a single sentence. If you have trouble with this little exercise, you haven’t yet arrived at a purpose. For example, here’s the purpose of this blog in one sentence: To teach business owners how to use blogs to get more business from the Web.

Can you define your blogging purpose in a sentence?

This marks the start of a new series dedicated to business blogging. This new series will consist of 100 articles built around blogging tips for business owners (i.e. those people who use their blogs for marketing or business communications).

If your blog is about kittens, then this article is not for you. However, if your blog is about your business, and your goal is to generate more business from your blogging efforts … then these blogging tips are aimed at you.

I’ll use this page as a compilation as well. Each time a new article is posted, I’ll link to it from this page. An ongoing chronicle of blogging tips and wisdom … or so I like to think.

Tip #1 - Define Your Blogging Purpose
For what reason will you publish your business blog? If you can’t answer this fundamental question, you have some homework to do. This article explains why.

Tip #2 - Put a Blog Plan on Paper
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.

Tip #3 - Choose the Best Writer
Who you choose to write your company blog is an important consideration, because the writer alone will determine the blog’s success or failure.

We have not disappeared.

We are just overhauling the mission of this website to make it more useful to you, the reader.

Coming in August — more business blogging tips than you can shake a stick at. Writing, design, technical matters, bells and whistles, and then some.

Be back soon!

~Brandon 

In my last post, I shared a blog post from the CEO Blogger’s Club. In it, Linda Zimmer explained the technical how-to of tagging, as well as the benefits.

So what is tagging, anyway? I’ve offered a simple definition below, as well as links to related resources (including another great blog article by Linda Zimmer):

Tags: According to Wikipedia, a tag is “a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (like picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information it is applied to.”

Tagging: So tagging is simply the act of assigning these keywords to certain pieces of information, such as your blog posts.

More information than you ever wanted to know about tagging:

• Tagging: What is it Good For?
• Tagging Gives Web a Human Meaning
• The Future of Blogs: Tagging
• Tagging Questions Answered
• Secrets of Tagging and Social Bookmarking in 2007
• Categories and Tagging in WordPress
• Why Do People Tag?
• Cognitive Analysis of Tagging (highly technical)

My take on tagging - Aside from creating blog posts like this one, I don’t give tagging much thought. As is always the case with technology in general (and blogging in particular), there’s a smarter way to do things.

I run this blog on WordPress, and I categorize my blog posts using WordPress’s built-in category features. This serves the same purpose as tagging, but it also benefits readers once they reach my blog, allowing them to quickly and easily search information by topic.

Hope you found this helpful.

~Brandon

The corporate blogging alphabet is now available for consumption. (And I only had to reach for a thesaurus once!)

I started creating this document just for fun. Sad? But then it took on a life of its own. The finished product is a list of corporate blogging benefits and best practices … from A to Z.

Obviously not all of the letters / entries will apply to all corporate blogging or CEO blogging scenarios, but they all apply to corporate blogging in some way. At least in my mind.

Hopefully there’s at least one letter in this alphabet that makes you think of blogs in a new and refreshing way.

The Corporate Blogging Alphabet

Law.com has assembled a formidable list of do’s and don’ts for corporate blogging. I’m glad they added that this is a “high-level overview,” because there’s no way to make such a list that applies to all businesses who turn to blogging.

What about your company blog, or your CEO blog? Do you have your own list of do’s and don’ts? If not, it might be a good idea to create one. If nothing else, it will help you remember why you started your blog in the first place.

Want to see my list? It’s really short, and thus easy to remember:

• Do stick to the topic of the site (as much as possible).
• Don’t bore people (if at all possible).

Can’t go wrong with that!

Today I was contacted by a guy name Eric Thom from RSS Applied (www.rssapplied.com). They are some kind of blogging company that sells “internet visibility systems,” whatever that means.

I wanted to share my experiences with this person from RSS Applied (www.rssapplied.com) so you will know what kind of company they are, should they contact you about their services.

It all started when Eric Thom from RSS Applied sent me an unsolicited email that was short to the point of being both cryptic and rude. I replied to ask what he meant, explaining that his short email was a bit confusing. He replied in an equally curt and abrasive way. So I politely recommended he get a book on business communications — I do what I can, after all.

That led to a series of insulting “attack” emails with content such as this:

“Those phrases you speak of are a joke to get ranked for number 1, your design is from th stone age number 2, and fiianlly Frankly graigslist would be a step from what content we see on your tiny site. Nice talking to you Farmer, must suit you, farmer.” [Sent from Eric Thom of RSS Applied]

> ——– Original Message ——–
> Subject: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: blogging
> From: “Eric Thom”
> Date: Thu, March 15, 2007 4:45 pm

All typos have been left intact as not to misrepresent Mr. Thom.

This kind of personal attack bothers me a great deal. Not because I’m the least bit intimidated by a 12-year-old posing as a business man, but because this company (RSS Applied) claims to be in the business of communications. They claim to be experts in blogging, blog content, etc.

I don’t know about you, but RSS Applied isn’t the kind of company I would want giving me communications advice … unless the name of the lesson was “Insults 101.”

I don’t like to bring negativity into this blog. But I realize that most of my readers are regular bloggers, so there’s a good chance this company (RSS Applied) will contact you about their services. I only want to share my brief but distasteful experience with RSS Applied so you’ll have an idea of who you’re dealing with, should they ever pitch their services to you.

Legal Disclaimer: I make no other assertions or claims about RSS Applied (www.rssapplied), aside from sharing the abusive emails I have received from them.

~Brandon

The first week of March, there will be a new e-book that you can download right from this website. The book is called The Triangle System: Blogging Your Way Up the Search Engines, and the title pretty much says it all.

This book is more of a training manual than general blogging book. Specifically, it will teach you a three-part publishing system with the power to drive your blog / website up the search engine ranks.

There are no tricks or deception to this strategy. Just a solid technique for publishing quality content onto the web … and be rewarded with excellent search engine position.

People First, Search Engines Second
One of the main premises of this book is the notion of “people first and search engines second.” Anyone who knows me is familiar with this expression, because I use it a lot. In this book, I will teach you to create a blog-based resource that your target audience will love. The fact that this system will also improve your search engine ranking is just icing on the cake.

A Corporate Blogging Resource
This book will benefit anyone involved with corporate blogging, whether it’s a staff writer maintaining a portion of the company’s blog, or a CEO running his or her own blog. After all, anyone involved in business can benefit from increased exposure. Right?

This book is in the final edit stage and will be online soon. I’ll post it right over there in the right-hand column. Trust me, if you’re involved in corporate blogging in any way, shape or form … you don’t want to miss this book.
~Brandon