One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is effectively marketing their business in the digital world. Barriers often include limited financial resources, limited time, and limited knowledge.

One of the best no-cost (other than the value of your time) approaches to building a strong presence in cyberspace is to blog on a regular basis. It is recommended to have your blog be part of your website to increase your search engine optimization (SEO) results.

Blogging at least twice a month is necessary if you want people remember that you exist, and blogging weekly or even more often is even better – if you can keep it up consistently. Blog posts can range in length from around 250 words to over 1,500 words, with the length depending in part on your audience.

You can use your blog to help your customers solve a problem, learn about a new trend, explore a new idea, or open a discussion about something new happening in the field. However, it’s important to remember that blog posts can be entertaining as well as informative.

Every blogger needs to find his or her (or his or her company’s) “voice” and style, both of which will evolve with time and experience.

 

Tips for Effective Business Blogging

• Use key words throughout the blog post, but especially in your headline and the first few sentences. Doing so will help increase the chance of your blog post being found in search results.
• Headlines should be both informative and catchy.
• Use short sentences as well as subheadings between subjects to help readers skim.
• Include at least one image as way of drawing people in to read your post
• Images should be eye-catching, intriguing, and entertaining.
• Include links to key references and articles to help people get more related information.
• Include a call to action.

• Have a “signature” at the end of every blog post where you briefly describe yourself and your business and use the same signature section each time. Be sure to include your website in your signature.
• Research your competition’s blog posts to help you determine the appropriate length of a blog post in your field, and get ideas for content and writing style.
• Once you complete your blog post, in addition to posting it on your site, be sure to post it to all the social sites where you have an active presence as a way to draw attention to it.
• If you aren’t on Pinterest, consider creating a business account and create a board just for your blog posts. Recently, Pinterest chose to feature my board of my blog posts for a few weeks, as an example for new Pinterest users. That board now has nearly 5,500 followers!

 

How About You?

Do you blog? How often do you blog and what type of blog posts do you create (informative, entertaining, etc)? What advice would you give to a beginning blogger?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.