This post was originally published on October 15, 2015 on Bamboo Creative. It has been reposted here with permission.
By now, you probably know about the benefits of blogging for your business and your website; search engines love blogs and so does your audience. If you have a blog that remains relatively inactive, or you’re too scared to start one because it seems too daunting, these are some business blogging tips that will get you writing in no time.
Plan First – Write Later
Writer’s block will be your worst enemy if you give yourself deadlines, without any ideas. Before you decide that you have to post every week on a specific day, make sure you have all of your ideas laid out. Forcing yourself to come up with ideas on the day of, will make the task seem daunting.
Brainstorm
Spend some time once a month to simply come up with the ideas for your blog, this will make your life so much
easier. Here’s some topics (along with examples) to spark blog ideas:
- Current events/awareness days: this gives you instant blogging ammo, about topics people are already searching for. Check out Charity Village and Daysoftheyear for ideas on awareness days. See what’s going on in the news/online, ex: politics, pop culture, etc. Blog example
- Link roundups: this an easy way to build content, collect links around the same topic and do a weekly roundup. Perfect for industry specific, ex: financial news roundup. Blog example
- FAQs: write a blog post answering some of your most-asked questions, or perhaps an important question you got from a client recently. Chances are if one person wanted to know, many more will. Blog example
- Industry trends: what’s big in your industry? What changes are happening? What does the future look like? Blog example
- Recaps: talk about your experience at an event, conference or trip; summarize or share. Blog example
- How-tos: what can you teach someone? Everyone is an expert on something (or many things), find ways to provide useful tips. Blog example
- Industry secrets/lies: reveal some insight on industry secrets or debunk some myths. Blog example
- Op-Ed: write an opinion piece about something. We all have opinions, share yours (not to be confused with a rant). Blog example
- Tips and tricks: quick, easy to digest tips and/or tricks for something. Explore what you do and your industry and give people something they can use. Blog example
- Disagree/agree: is something trending in the news or your industry that you really disagree or agree with? Write a blog about it! Blog example
- Community project: people love to hear about community work, so showcase what you’re doing. Blog example
Edit!
It doesn’t matter how amazing your content is, if you publish an unprofessional piece of writing, that’s all anyone will remember. If you’re not so great at self-editing, take advantage of free services like Grammarly, they have a free plug-in to your browser that will edit your work as you type.
High-Quality Images
Visual content is important these days, make sure you use either images you create yourself, or use high-quality stock photos. Great sites that have free (amazing) stock images are Unsplash and Albumarium.
Post and Repost
You spent time writing your posts, make sure people see them. Post and repost your blogs on social media, your content is only seen by a minority of your following every time you post, so get creative in recycling and reusing your content.
Amber Craig / Bamboo Creative Inc