Blogging Basics for Businesses: The Top Questions You Need Answered

What types of blog posts are right for your small business? Digital marketing goes beyond sending emails and updating service or product descriptions on your website. If you’re ready to add a blog to your site or want to update existing posts, look at what you need to know about this type of content and your options.

How Will the Blog Posts Relate to Your Business?

Before you post your first blog (or update your current articles), you need to decide on a focus for this section of your website. Blog posts can drive traffic to your site, boost your SEO, help your customers get to know you and your services better, and introduce new products. This means these articles should relate to an aspect of your business and to the type of marketing strategies you want to use.

The content of your blog posts needs to directly link to who you are or what you do, sell, and the services you provide. General interest, pop culture, or news types of posts won’t help to boost your business (unless your company is celebrity- or news-related).

Instead, you need to narrow your content to your industry. If you own a personal training business, your blog posts should focus on physical fitness and health. But if you own a financial firm, you might want debt, personal wealth, or financial management and planning posts.

What Blog Post Format Should You Choose?

Topics or content areas aren’t the only issues to consider when you add or update a business website blog. After you select subjects to blog about, you need to consider how you will format the posts. An experienced digital marketer can help you to shape the content into blogs that reach out to new customers, engage existing clients, or perform the function that best suits your company’s needs.

Popular post formats include how-to blogs, frequently asked questions (FAQs), numbered lists, the best ideas, services, or products, checklists, case studies/personal stories, interviews, or industry-related tips. You won’t need to choose one type or format. Instead, select a variety of options for different posts. This creates a wider range of information and may engage more customers or clients.

Some formats may not fit with specific types of content or relate to your industry. You also don’t want to give too much away or provide information that will make your business irrelevant. If you offer a service, a how-to article that details the step-by-step instructions for the same or similar service makes it unnecessary for would-be customers to pay you. A plumber who posts extensive how-to blogs about clog removal or replacing fixtures may lose business to their own free blogs.

Who Should Write Your Blogs?

The answer to this question depends on how much business you want or expect to get from the posts. The goal of your blog is to market your company. But if the articles don’t use proven SEO strategies, are poorly crafted, or simply fall flat, you won’t build customer engagement. This can work against the idea of the blog and leave your company exactly where it was before you upgraded your website.

If you don’t have an in-house writer or content producer, you need to outsource this job. Choose a digital marketer who has extensive experience creating blog content and knows your industry well. A writer who can craft product descriptions or research reports has value to your company. But this professional isn’t the right person to write blog posts.

Along with blog writing expertise and industry-specific knowledge, your content producer should have the ability to craft blogs in a voice that matches your company’s (and website’s) tone. This could include a friendly, humorous, informational, emotional, dramatic, or authoritative voice.

Do you need help with small business digital marketing and content production? Contact Grow Team for more information.