If you have decided to start a blog to expand your company’s online presence, you will quickly realize that it takes a lot of hard work to get good results. The increase in sales or brand exposure won’t come overnight, so you have to be patient and you have to work for it. Before you get started, you need to consider what your blog is all about and the technical details that will help your work become a reality.
What Your Blog Is All About
If you want to expand your company’s online presence, you first need to understand what your blog is all about. You need to decide how this blog will help you as a company and also help your readers. Here are a few points to consider:
- Niche: Selecting a topic that already is oversaturated in the blogosphere means you’ll be competing for the same readers from the more established blogs. So, unless you have a different perspective to bring to the table, you may want to narrow down your focus. For example, if you’re a mom who’s passionate about gardening, consider launching a blog that shares tips to help busy working moms start and maintain their own garden for only a few hours per week.
- Target audience: You can learn about your target audience by their responses to existing blog posts and through forums, where readers tend to address their opinions.
- Voice: Avoid using a bland tone that makes your posts mirror others in your niche. Instead, figure out what makes your readers tick, and craft your voice to follow suit. Infuse your unique personality and perspective into your content to captivate the reader’s attention. Speak their language and address their needs so they’re more than willing to share with others.
- Promotion strategy: Social Triggers suggests using the 80/20 rule when building a blog audience; put 80 percent of you effort on promotion and 20 percent effort on curation. Also, social media dissemination needs to be consistent each day so readers know you’re passionate about what you’re doing. The same rule applies for posting content to your blog, so it’s best to keep extra posts in the arsenal in case you don’t have time to create new posts.
- Headlines: In “The Copywriter’s Handbook,” Bob Bly explains that each headline needs to follow the rule of four U’s; they need to be urgent, unique, ultra-specific and useful.
The Technical Details
Once you figure out the details for the content of your blog, you need to think about the technical aspects that will help everything come together. Consider the following:
- Domain name: If possible, select a name with relevant keywords to attract readers and assist with search engine rankings.
- Hosting and blogging platform: Pick a platform that works for you. Many bloggers use WordPress because it boasts a user-friendly interface and comes with a host of free downloadable plugins and widgets.
- Layout: Keep it professional and simple, regardless of the topic or target audience.
- Sharing: Towards the end of each post, don’t forget to encourage readers to leave a comment and share the post with friends.
- Backup: To prevent your blog work from vanishing into thin air due to a computer crash, consider backing up all of your files to a cloud storage provider like LiveDrive so you can access your files when you need them most.
It may take a while for your efforts to pay off, but if you keep working at it and cultivating relationships with other bloggers, your efforts won’t be in vain.
