This is my experience with blogging. In late 2008, I started a personal blog. I had been reading blogs and about blogging. I was curious about it and wanted to try it and see if it was something I was interested in. For a full year I wrote a post every day. Usually they were about things I was learning at work or learning in my personal time.
I would consider that a personal blog. I wasn’t doing it for money. I was doing it to learn and to experience it. It was really a hobby for more than that first year.
Eventually, I started freelance writing for business blogs. I did that while still maintaining a personal blog. Then I started a business, Ghost Blog Writers, and added a blog to the company website. So I was really writing a personal blog and a business blog.
But as obligations grew I knew that I couldn’t really continue to do that. So I wanted to figure out how to convert the personal blog into the business blog. Or really to start combining the two.
Here are a few tips if you’re considering the same…
1. Select Appropriate Categories
I think it can be good to add personal posts to a business blog. After all, we do business with people, not brand names. I see it mostly in B2B. People like to work with people. And we don’t just like to know about the business side of things. We like to get to know the personal side of our colleagues.
So when you’re doing categories for your business blog, add a category for personal posts. You don’t have to share intimate things or do rants or things like that. You can continue blogging as normal with personal posts being right on the business blog. It’s okay to do this. More readers accept it.
2. Add Personal Touches To Business Posts
You can take another route and do kind of what I did in the intro of this post. You can add personal touches and stories to business posts. This can work really well too for the reasons I just stated in the first point. People like to see the personal details of the people behind the brand name.
3. Continue To Have Recurring Tasks
Maybe your personal blog followed a little more loose of a schedule. Now that it’s going to be more business you need to stick to a schedule. You need to break out title brainstorming and schedule time for it. And you need to break out the writing and editing as separate recurring tasks.
You can still do “on a whim” personal posts when inspiration strikes. But really stick to a schedule for the business side of things. That’s how you see success for the long term.
4. Determine Frequency
Let’s say you’re doing one post per week for business. And you’re doing two per week for your personal blog. You could just combine them and do it all on the business blog, but with two personal posts each week.
Or you could do one of each. Or you could look to cut back on personal and up the business side of things.
The big thing is to determine a frequency and aim to stick with it.
5. Regularly Determine Time Availability
But that will depend on your time availability. If you’re combining these two things the odds are high that your business is growing and taking more of your time. You might have to cut back on the personal side of things in order to free up time for the business. Not just for blogging, but for other business requirements.
There is only so much time in the day and you can drive yourself insane if you aren’t willing to give up some things as new items come into your life.
Conclusion
It’s okay to combine a business blog and a personal blog. I’ve done it myself. I’ve seen others do it. Business can be personal. Obviously there is a balance to be found. But in general people want to see the personal side of the people they’re doing business with.
So go ahead and try it. Hopefully these tips can help with the transition. But feel confident that you’ll figure it out along the way.