Do you already have a business blog, but you aren’t getting a return on it? Could you have planned it out all wrong or didn’t even plan at all?
Many businesses hear the word blog and think things like: more customers and more sales. This is possible, but not without careful planning, execution and maintenance. After all, you can’t just put up a blog and expect the world to find you after your first post.
Make a Plan
Many things go into a business blog and the most important is: planning. Without the right planning, your blog is already destined to fail.
Make a plan; follow it; learn from it and maintain it.
For your plan, look at things like:
- What type of content will you provide on your blog?
- What platform will you use?
- Who is your target reader?
- How can you turn them into paying customers?
Pull The Trigger
After all the planning is put together, it’s time to put that plan into action. Don’t do everything you have planned at once – launch different parts of your blog in stages.
Now I am not talking about doing your blog launch half-assed, but just don’t bring out all the bells and whistles on the first day.
Remember to have at least 5- 10 posts ready to go on the first day launch, an about page, a contact page and other information to link to your business pages. Having that basic content up when your ready to launch your blog is essential.
Including your on site content, don’t forget off-site promotions. After all, just because you built, doesn’t mean that they are going to come to you, right?
Promoting your blog with tools such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube and other social sites is also a critical piece of the blog puzzle. Creating things like Press Releases, Podcasts and other media are other great ways to promote your new blog.
Check the Stats
After you launch the first phase of your business blog and promotion campaign, let things sit for a while. After a week or so, start checking your stats – see how things are doing.
Here are some questions to ask when looking at your stats:
- What kind of traffic are you getting?
- Is it the right target audience?
- Are they subscribing to your blog or newsletter?
- Are you getting a good conversation rate?
- Are you getting contacted through your blog?
- Are they looking into more of your business pages?
- What type of bounce rate are you getting?
After looking at your stats, you can find what works, what doesn’t and tune your blog accordingly. After a bit of time, start thinking of phase two of your business blog.
A business blog is a very powerful weapon for your business; make sure you treat it seriously or that weapon will turn against you. Treat your blog like a business with the content, promotions and upkeep it requires.
If you fail to plan out your strategy of your business blog, you have already failed.
Need help with your business blog? Give me a ring and we can build what you need.
Photo credit: Worldislandinfo
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