Blogging for business is one of the best things you can do to grow your target audience and number of consumers. As such, it’s essential that businesses include it in their content marketing strategy. Among the benefits, as told by Danielle Winski from Three Girls Media, are that blogging can:
- “Boost your company’s visibility online through search engine optimization (SEO)
- Position you and your business as go-to experts in your field
- Give you access to a global audience
- Establish credibility for your potential consumers
- Amplify awareness and recognition of your brand”
While most will agree that blogging for business sets your company up for success, it can be a very time-consuming process, especially when you run into writer’s block (which you inevitably will). The Three Girls’ blog has discussed this previously and has many tips for overcoming this particular obstacle.
But what if you are struggling to discover what it is that your target audience would be interested in? You’ve got the energy and creativity, but you just don’t know which path to direct it toward. In this blog article we discuss ten blogging ideas guaranteed to resonate with the most readers as possible.
1. Ask Your Target Audience What’s Important To Them
If you truly don’t know what your target audience would be interested in reading about, ask! Create posts on your social media channels encouraging your audience to suggest ideas for blog articles they would like to read from you. This is not only a great way to create a list of blog post topics to write about, but it also increases engagement on your social media. Additionally, it shows your audience that you care about what they want and that you’re listening. You may be surprised with how many ideas you can come up with from just one simple post!
If you find that not many people respond to your social media request for ideas, look for other places to consult your customers. If you have a physical store, ask people when they come in to shop. If you have an e-newsletter, ask them to respond to that. Utilize what you have to communicate your need to your audience. You could even come up with some sort of contest where they win a prize for coming up with a blog post topic!
2. Blog About What You Know
When you write about something you know and enjoy, blogging for business comes much more easily.
It’s no secret that it’s easier to write about something when it’s a topic that is familiar to you. The words come more naturally and you don’t have to look up a lot of information. For this reason, when blogging for business, always start with what you know. Tell the story of how your business came to be, explain something about your business that may be hard for your consumers to understand or try to teach your audience something related to your business. Just make sure that you avoid jargon as much as possible or explain it in easy-to-understand language.
Whatever direction you take it in, make sure that you actually are an expert in whatever you’re blogging about – or that you consult reputable resources that will help guide and inform you. Readers (especially those who are familiar with the topic) will be able to tell if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
3. Create A Step-By-Step Guide
One of the best things you can do when blogging for business is to create a step-by-step guide for something related to your industry. Not only is this helpful for your audience, but it is also something that is quick and easy to read. Not everyone has time to sit and read a heavy, long blog article, but when it is split up into manageable chunks and tips readers usually find that it’s been worth the time and effort.
Think about something you can explain in the realm of your business or industry and go from there! There are bound to be several topics you can come up with that your readers would be excited and interested in learning about!
4. New Information Related To Your Field
Blogging about new information related to your industry is a great strategy to present yourself as an expert in your field.
Businesses and consumers alike prefer to stay in the know about what is going on around them. Stay current on industry best practices, breaking news, new technology – basically anything that is going on in the world related to your business. When something new comes up, write a blog post about it!
One of the advantages to writing about new information when blogging for business is that you have the potential to be one of the first to share your insight about the topic. This gives your business a chance to present yourselves as experts and innovative thought leaders in the field, giving you an edge over your competitors. This is also a great way to enhance your SEO about particular topics related to your industry.
5. Mistakes You’ve Made
Consumers like to know the brands they are loyal to are real people with real experience. What better way to show this than blogging about mistakes you’ve made and the lessons you’ve learned from them? Being relatable and showing you’re human with your blog posts will not only help your audience engage with you, but it can also teach them something in the process.
Writing about your flaws or mistakes is a great way to help other people not make the same mistakes as you. Sometimes it’s hard to be honest, especially if the mistake was particularly egregious, but being transparent can go a very long way in engaging customers and showing people that your brand is one to be trusted. You may even find that this reflection causes you to learn something about yourself and your brand as well.
6. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Answer frequently asked questions when blogging for business.
Using your blog articles to answer frequently asked questions is not only a quick and easy thing to write about, but it’s incredibly helpful to your audience. Many businesses have FAQ pages on their website, but there isn’t often a lot of space to fully explain the answer. A great idea for blogging for business is to take some of these FAQs and explain the answer in more detail.
You may find that as you write about frequently asked questions, your readers will submit their own follow-up questions. This not only creates engagement on your posts, but also helps you to identify different topics to write about in the future.
7. The Future Of Your Industry
When blogging for business it’s helpful to look ahead. What changes do you see coming for your industry, or what do you hope will change about it in the future? This information is helpful to your audience, and it also shows them that you’re as up to date in your field as possible. Remember, in this type of blog post it isn’t necessary for the idea to be something that is achievable now. The idea is to dream about what your industry could become in the future.
Webinars, in-person workshops (once available) and new articles from reputable sources are helpful ways to discover where your industry expects to find itself in the future. As long as you commit to being a life-long learner in some form, you’ll be able to stay on top of what is happing in your field.
8. Link Roundups
One thing that many businesses do when blogging for business is to create roundups of current news and articles that are relevant to your field. This type of blog post is easy to write as it requires less content creation for you, but it does necessitate some research into which articles you want to share.
One way to help with this is to create google alerts for certain topics. Search Engine Journal explains what google alerts are, why they are helpful and how to set them up. Setting alerts allows you to be notified by email when a relevant article or link matches your alert terms. Keep a spreadsheet or folder to collect this information so that every couple of weeks you are able to write a blog post featuring several of the articles and a small write up about each one.
9. Promote A Local Business
Blogging about local businesses widens your audience and shows that you care.
Sometimes it’s a good idea when blogging for business to stray away from talking solely about your own industry topics and instead promote a local business near you. Writing about local businesses not necessarily related to your own field has several advantages. One is that it shows your readers that you’re invested in the community and want to help it succeed. Another reason it’s a good strategy to blog about local organizations is that it shows them (the businesses you feature) you’re looking out for them and care about their success as well.
One last benefit to writing about local businesses is that it can increase your exposure. When businesses know you’ve written about their brand, they are likely to share your link on their social media or on their own business blog. Their audience has now become your audience.
10. Promotional Content
Here at Three Girls Media, we encourage you to be mindful about the amount of promotional content you share and to not focus on only selling to your customers. In fact, we typically subscribe to the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your content should be nonpromotional and only 20% promotional in nature.
However, it is appropriate from time to time to write blog articles about the services and special offers your company may have.
As long as you have a healthy balance of each, it’s fine to promote your business occasionally. It might be tempting to try to sell yourself as much as you can, but it can be annoying to consumers if they feel like you’re only trying to sell to them. It’s hard to create brand loyalty and consumer trust if they feel like all you want out of them is a sale.
Blogging for business can have a very positive affect on your brand. It establishes your company as a leader in your field, increases your brand’s visibility and potentially gives yourself a global audience. While it does take time and effort, it is something that is well worth it in the long run.
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