9 Efficient Components of Blogging For Small Business Success

Want to know how to use blogging for small business?

Looking for the ways to make blogging work for your marketing?

As everyone says: You need a blog.

To create a new blog isn’t hard, but what is next?

Like any marketing tool, it can be effective or time and money wasting. Thankfully, with a little bit of know-how, you can achieve more in online marketing.

Here are eight efficient components of blogging for small business.

What’s the point of blogging for small business?

Working on your blog, be strategic. Define what for you need it. The fact that “everyone” has it isn’t a reason.

Here are a few options:

• Help selling your product.
• Create more interest in your product or service.
• Have a community of people who interact with your brand online.
• Build an authority and personal brand online.
• Provide a support and help people to get most out of using your product or service.

You can choose one, two or even all of them for the blog in general. However, every time you write a blog post, set one goal for each post.

Who are you writing for?

What is your target market? Knowing the people who you are marketing to makes it easier to build up a successful blog.

When you know who is your audience, you will serve them better.

Look around and try to find real people who may be interesting in your business. Talk to them to see what they need, listen to the questions they ask, pay attention to what they desire (these are your new blog post ideas).

It sounds obvious, but what they think and want may be entirely different from what you think the may need.

This is one of the reasons why many other people fail in business.

Find the audience and write each article for one particular person.

Plan your blog posts ahead

From the beginning it may be difficult to find the right content marketing strategy as when you start, you see what works and what doesn’t and make changes.

Keeping in mind your objectives and audience, come up with a few blog post ideas. You can create a series of blog posts to show through a core message of your business.

From the first day of your blog try to be consistent, even if you will write one-two times per month. Later add more when you feel more confident in writing.

When you are showing up consistently, you build a trust for your readers.

Craft your blog post

Your blog post headline should be eye-catching. Most people read only the title: if it’s attractive then they will go through the post, if it’s bored, they will pass it no matter how good is your article.

A few more tips to go:

• Visual content also grabs attention, so add at least one image.
• Split your text to 3-5 rows paragraphs. It’s easier to read.
• Write as long as it’s enough to drive readers into a topic.

Use a keyword or key phrase for each blog post

Writing a blog post focus on one keyword of phrase. It’s the main idea of what you are writing.

Use your keyword in the title, inside of the subtitles, in the text, in the ‘alt’ tag for the image, and in the meta description to the post.

For example, for this post, the key phrase is ‘blogging for small business’. You can find it in the headline and several times in the text.

It’s important don’t overuse your keyword. Use it when it’s appropriate. At first, you write for people.

Link to authority sites

Add external links to authority sites. It shows that you write quality content and will help Google to notice what is your post about.

Advice from SEO expert Brian Dean:

Not linking out might be the #1 on-page SEO mistake that I see people make. I try to use 2-4x outbound links per 1000 words. That’s a good rule of thumb for most sites.

Keep in mind that the sites you link out to reflect on you. So make sure to link out to authority sites whenever possible.

Don’t forget to add a few links to the old posts on your own site too.

Build your email list

All the effort of blogging comes to the point that you need to grow your email list.

It is one of the best online marketing assets. It allows you to communicate with your readers on the more personal level and convert them to leads.

Add a subscribe form to your site. Better is you can offer people a valuable bonus or a free product for the subscribing: ebook, video lessons, cheat sheet, etc.

The formula of getting more subscribers:

Amazing Blog Content + Crystal Clear Calls-to-Action = Massive Email List

Source: buffer.com

What action people should make on your blog?

Add call-to-action to each blog post. Either it’s a subscribe form at the end, you may ask questions, ask for feedback, or give a link to the landing page

Let people share your blog posts

Install social media plugins. For WordPress something like sumome.com (free) or warfareplugins.com (paid).

Add twitter quotes inside of the post with ‘Click To Tweet’ plugins (warfareplugins already includes this option):

Conclusion

While creating a blog is a simple step, turning it into useful marketing tool needs bringing more components together.

These tactics will help you to improve your blogging and get more readers.

Do you write for/about your business? If you have any questions about blogging for small business, leave them in the comments below.

Marina Barayeva

Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.