I’ve been in the business blogging world for over a decade. Demand has been growing every year. There have been a few spurts of high interest, but the long-term trend has been upward and continues to rise.
It seems that the industry is reaching a sort of maturity phase. Over a decade ago I would say that business blogging was in its infancy. People were trying to figure it out. That type of situation leads to a lot of success, but also a lot of frustration. Most from expectations that are too high or due to an underestimation of the work involved in building a successful blog.
One of the interesting things going on right now is that content consumption is at an all time high and seems to be going even further.
If you’re interested in starting a business blog it’s as good of a time as ever. You’re not late and you’re not alone.
Here are a few steps for getting started…
1. Dip Your Toe
I’m a believer in trying things out for awhile. See how you react. See how others react. Get a feel for what’s going on and use that initial feedback and data to make a longer term decision.
It seems that we’re often afraid to take this route with a lot of things. Maybe it’s a fear of being judged or something like that. You don’t have to declare on social media that you’re launching a blog or anything like that. You don’t have to talk about it. Just try writing and publishing a few posts and see how it goes.
I find that if you do this consistently and with anything for a business that you’re going to find new avenues for growth. Dipping your toe into things without holding yourself back leads to opportunity discovery.
You may find that you love blogging. You may find that you want to do it for your company, but that you don’t want to do the actual blogging.
2. Find A Writer
It seems simple, but finding a writer for the blog is important. And it’s often an overlooked aspect of business blogging. Sometimes the owner wants to do the blogging. But they’re often too busy in the long run. Sometimes the owner or manager will want to have an employee do the blogging. But often other tasks take on higher priority.
And in just about every situation there is more work and time involved than expected. And once the first 10 or so ideas are written, it becomes more difficult to maintain a consistent schedule.
So find a writer that can work on the blog consistently for the long-term. Whether it’s you, someone in house or someone from outside.
3. Brainstorm Categories
It seems to help to think about initial categories for a business blog. It’s basically the 3-5 main themes that you’re going to write about. If you’re in the auto detailing industry you could have a category for Cars, Trucks and Vans. If you’re a dentist you could have a category for Adults, Kids, General Care, Q&A, etc.
Categories are mainly to help readers on your blog to discover more content. Consider how Netflix organizes their content. That’s how it works on a blog. You can always change and adapt as you create more and more content, but it’s good to start with something in mind so you have some direction on the titles to create.
4. Brainstorm First 20 Titles
Most people that are interested in starting a blog have about ten ideas in their heads. I like to compare it to singer/songwriters that have their entire young lives to create their first ten songs. They record them, have success. Then it comes time for a second album and they often struggle to find an ongoing routine for creating new songs.
We’ll get to the repeating routine of brainstorming titles next, but it is important to brainstorm those initial ideas. Write down the ones you have in mind up to this point. Then take a little time to brainstorm a few more until you get to about 20.
5. Create Repeating Task Assignments
People that have repeating and lasting success are those that figure out how to create a repeating routine. In the music industry it’s often taking setting aside a month or two each year to focus on songwriting. Then it’s about going on tour. Then it’s about recording the new songs. Then it’s about releasing the songs and doing some promotion. Then it repeats the next year.
You can’t just figure it out as you go.
In business blogging the repeating tasks including the title brainstorming, the research, the writing, the editing and the publishing. And in some cases it involves the promotion.
Songwriters that wait for inspiration to strike don’t have sustainable careers. Business blogging is no different. You have to create a routine.
6. Determine A Schedule
It’s funny how some things don’t change. In the business blogging world, one post per week has remained about the average over the last 10+ years. I’ve seen businesses be successful with one post per month and businesses be successful with one post per day.
If you don’t have a hard feeling about a schedule then choose one post per week. Do that for a year and reassess after the year to see if you want to adjust. The most important thing for the first year is sticking to the schedule and building the routine.
7. Set Analytics, But Don’t Look For A Year
Analytics are important for a business blog. But more often than not I’ve seen businesses have high expectations and it leads to a quit death for the blog. That’s fine. Blogging isn’t for everyone.
But if you’re serious about the success of a blog then look at blogs you admire. Think about when you first discovered the blog. It was probably years after the blog was launched. That’s the type of timeline you’re looking at: years.
Set up the analytics for your blog. Then set a time on your calendar one year from now to review the analytics for the first time. You can learn from 50+ posts and a year’s worth of traffic. You can’t learn much after a month or two.
Conclusion
Starting a business blog from scratch is a fairly audacious thing for a business owner or manager. It’s a lot of work and a long-term undertaking. The tricky thing is that is relatively easy to start the blog. You can fire up WordPress with a nice looking theme. You can write a few posts. That’s the easy part.
The challenging part is turning blogging into an ongoing routine. If you can do that then you’re looking at potential long-term success.