Often when clients contact us for SEO services, one of the suggestions we make to them is to include a blog on their site, and post to it regularly. We tout the benefits of having fresh content that is regularly updated as being helpful to their customers and to search engines. A recent post by Lee Odden lays out the basic framework of how to get it right during the blog set up phase and beyond in his post 7 Key Elements to a Successful Business Blog. Lee talks about choosing an easy to remember URL for your business blog, linking the name or logo of your blog to the homepage, and having taglines to help visitors know what to expect from your blog.
We take clients by the hand and help them navigate most of the points he covers. There are two points however, that each blogger needs to figure out how to handle on their own. The first is content. We all know, Content is King, and I have a feeling that scares some people away from the idea of blogging. Let me reassure you, if you are running a business, or your part of the business, you have content. It may just be too familiar to you, since you deal with it every day. What is common place for you is information that your clients are probably searching for. If you install and maintain pools, talk about pool chemicals, pool maintenance, or opening the pool for the season. If you are in a creative industry, talk about a creative challenge and how you met it, talk about seasonal displays, talk about choosing the right color scheme. You get the idea. Keep track of the questions your customers ask you and use a few posts to answer the questions.
Lee talks about creating themes for different days of the week, and that can be helpful for some bloggers with a tendency for writers block. Your themes will depend on your business. His suggestions included Social Monday, and Rant Thursday, among others. Keep an eye on your industry news, and set aside topics that correspond to your theme days, then when it is time to write, you have information at your fingertips. Even better, assign different people to different themes, and have them write a few posts that you can then schedule for publication in the future. That way, if everyone gets busy for a little while, you have content at the ready to get you over the busy times.
The last point in Lee’s list is the Who. Not the band, but who is behind the blog. One way to highlight the Who is to append information about the author at the end of the post. Also, make it a point to discover your ‘voice’ when writing. This takes time and practice, but you will know when you find it and it will actually make it easier for you to write sincere posts. Your readers will be able to tell, too, and will respond to the real person behind the business.
Have you found your voice? How have you been able to tap the content around you for informative posts? Let us know in the comments, and happy blogging!
The Who behind this post is Regina Sillitti, Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client – tech translation. You can reach her at [email protected].
Photo Credits:
- http://www.sxc.hu/photo/770472
- http://www.sxc.hu/photo/418215
2 Replies to “Blogging for Business: Content and Voice”
This is a intuitive post on blogging. I agree with the points you made. One more thing I would suggest is to find your voice in storytelling. This is a creative way to hook your audience and keep them from being bored. Something you definitely want to add if you are trying to generate comments and views to your blog, while keeping “content king”. I recommend you check out this post http://bit.ly/ecVIqu. If you comment, you’ll be put in the running for a brand new read on business storytelling.
Thanks for the input Carolyn. I agree, finding your voice in all aspects is important, and not always easy. If we mimic the voices around us, we are just adding to the noise, and a sure way to bore the audience.