SBX 15: Creating A Killer Business Blog

The Small Business Express

Every business owner has been told by at least a few people that they need to have a blog.  They tell them a blog will make you a leader in your field, will drive tons of traffic to your website and will increase revenues 10 times over.  Well, maybe not 10 times, but you get the point.

Yes, a blog can be a powerful part of your overall marketing strategy, but most people that start one fail miserably.  Why is that?

It’s because they start a blog for the sake of starting a blog.  It’s because they start with no real aim or purpose in what they are doing.  It’s because they have no clue what they are doing.

If you take the time to learn about a using a blog as a business tool, it can provide one of the best ROI’s out of any of your marketing initiatives.  In this episode of The Small Business Express, we’ll go over how to get started.

In this episode of The Small Biz Express podcast we discuss:

  • How a blog can open up lead opportunities impossible to get anywhere else
  • Why you need a strategy in place before you start or else you’ll waste your time
  • How to shape your content to attract the right kind of leads
  • Creating content is hard, we show you some tricks to make it easy
  • Why you should spend more time promoting your article than actually writing it
  • Creating a system to market your blog posts

Action Steps from this episode:

  1. Start with your goals and develop a strategy.  If you start blogging without an end goal in mind, you’re just wasting your time.  When it comes to business, you need to blog with purpose.  You don’t have time to waste and need to make every article count.  A good strategy will keep you focused and on target and will keep you from just wasting your time.

  2. Decide on what types of content to create.  Creating content is hard.  If you’re not a writer, sitting down every week to write an article can be intimidating.  Having a strategy in place will help guide your content and creating a system of different “post types” will make it easier to write as you’re now using a template format.

  3. What to do after you publish a blog post.  Most big time bloggers will tell you that they spend more time promoting an article than they do promoting it.  If it takes you an hour to write an article, make sure you spend at least an hour promoting it.  This can be via your social media networks, your email list of customers and friends and even using some paid advertising to help give it that little “push” to get your article some traction.

 

Links and Resources Discussed in this Episode

  1. Inbound and Outbound startegies from The Small Biz Express. http://thesmallbizexpress.com/sbx-8-inbound-outbound-marketing-strategies/

  2. Problogger.net How to create the perfect list post. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/08/17/10-steps-to-the-perfect-list

  3. Great headline hacks for your blog posts.  http://boostblogtraffic.com/headline-hacks

  4. Stu McLaren’s charity, which is referenced in the show.  Stu is co-founder of Wishlist Member and does a fantastic job of integrating his charity with this internet-based business.  (http://worldteacheraid.org/)

  5. The ultimate charity page site.  No matter what cause you’re trying to support, let these people do the money collecting and distribution for you.  They’re reliable.  They’re the industry leader.  And at 10%, they’re also turning over the majority of donations directly to your charity.  (http://www.firstgiving.com)

 

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