Blogging is now a huge global industry. I think this has been largely due to two things, amongst several others of course. One, businesses have over time realized the power of blogging in business growth. Two, people generally have realized that there is lots of money to made from blogging. The second reason feeds into the first one because it is mainly businesses that will seek into audiences bloggers build. Thus some businesses might not blog but simply leverage on bloggers. However, some (probably most) businesses actually build their own audiences through their own blogs. In this article, I explore the key things that you must put in a business blog.
Product And Services Descriptions And Reviews
A business blog can be used as a platform to describe your products and services in detail. You can actually have guests feature on your blog doing reviews or demos of your products or services. You can even feature customers’ reviews or demos. That idea is to create a space where people can get to know more about what you are selling. It is important to ensure you are not hard-selling. The thrust is to provide content that engages, entertains, informs, and teaches.
Industry-Related News And Information
When running a business it obviously falls under a particular industry. It can also be directly or indirectly linked to or affected by other industries. People generally love interesting news items, the latest developments, trends, and the like. You can put together blog posts that discuss areas like that. You will notice good engagements because people love to stay abreast with what is happening around them. You can even cover basic news items that have implications for your business or respective industry.
Entrepreneur, Thought Leader Or Industry Expert Profiles Or Interviews
People love this type of content because it involves real-life people and experiences. People desire to hear from people who are considered gurus in their craft. You can contact such people to come up with very insightful interviews or profiles. You can even consider budding business people or entrepreneurs. Such content is relatable and highly sought after.
Business Ideas And Opportunities
As much as you have a business and clients, literally, everyone is looking to start a business. No matter how many years have been there with people starting businesses, business ideas still fascinate people. Blogging on business ideas or how to start certain businesses or startups is something quite engaging. You can also even discuss or share a wide range of business opportunities e.g. calls for proposals, business competitions, investment opportunities, and so on.
Book Suggestions Or Reviews
I have also noticed that people love to hear about book recommendations. Of course, many people have a poor reading culture but there is a considerable number that loves to read. You can do blog posts listing and describing books people should read. For example, you can do a list of books to read on investing, marketing and sales, and so on. Alternatively, you can take a particular book and reviewing discussing key nuggets from it.
Business Tips And Advice
Tips and advice appeal a lot to people. It is amazing that what would be considered platitudes still appeal to many people. Every individual in business has a unique experience which is why the body of knowledge is ever increasing. You can do blog posts on business tips and advice premised on your own experience. You can also look at particular key public figures that have made it in business and discuss what they offer as tips and advice.
Reader Suggestions Or Requests
You can cover topics that would have been suggested or requested by your readers. As readers go through your blog posts they can notice certain areas they need content on. That is why it is important to engage with your readers. Paying attention to them and acting on their suggestions or requests will thrill them.
Interesting Miscellaneous Topics
This is open-ended and at times you might not even look at areas related to your business. You can study or observe what is trending at a particular time and ride on that wave. This will appeal to many people because they usually love to follow what is trending. The idea here is to bring in an element of variety or surprise by seemingly going off-course. Readers will most likely find this interesting and fun.
Always remember that when blogging you are targeting your audience. They want to be informed and educated on relevant and engaging areas that matter to them. Do not be caught up in writing on content that appeals only to you per se; be guided by what your audience’s needs are. Encourage audience engagement and pay attention to what they say or their reactions. Get to monitor and assess analytics detailing how your blog is performing. Do not forget the cardinal rule of waning attention spans. People’s attention spans are generally decreasing so make your content of reasonable, concise and precise length. It is even recommended to give out your content in small but frequent doses.
