How do you build the best blog for your business?
It’s easier said than done, but some guidelines are extremely helpful for those just starting and trying to create this interface for customers and other visitors.
This first blog post will discuss six higher-level guidance pieces for people creating business blogs. These have to do with brainstorming and orienting your project before you begin:
Think About Your Goals and Objectives
You’re less likely (perhaps unlikely) to build a great blog if you don’t know what you’re building it for. Starting to look at your goals and objectives involves thinking clearly about what your business does and what you want the blog to accomplish toward that end. You’ll want to think about how the blog supports sales, for example, and whether certain conversions make sense to track and work toward.
Pinpoint Your Blog’s Appeal
Within that general business environment, you also want to narrow down what people will look for when they read your blog.
Think about what the business is passionate about and wants to promote…
Then, match that with appropriate keywords and social media networks to get a better chance of connecting with your target audience.
Take a Look at Competitors
Another good piece of blog planning is to evaluate the competition. You’ll start to see some of what you can adapt as principles for your blog and how to stand out in a wide field.
Look at Channels and Platforms.
Do you want to run your website blog in
WordPress or Shopify? Do you have an existing
platform that will be most effective?
When trying to find out where to build, there are many options, from WordPress, a widespread platform with fewer bells and whistles, to places like Wix and Shopify, which offer a lot more planned design.
Cost is a factor, as is integrating with your other business architecture, and you also want to look at hosting options.
Create a Content Strategy and Editorial Calendar
Another thing that helps us is having a schedule of what to post and when. At a higher level, you also want to have a content strategy you can use to guide topics, content, and everything else.
You’ll also want to figure out who your staff will be – who’s writing, who’s editing, and who’s posting, etc. You may have another social media person or some other process for porting content to different
channels.
Evaluate Your Results
In addition to comparing your blog to others, look at the page views that you get consistently and plan around that.
This evaluation will give you a better idea of how you’re doing.
Those are some higher-level ways to optimize your new blog for your business – in the next blog post, we’ll talk about some practical tips for populating that blog with content.
Let WebSubstance help you to improve your online footprint.
