Business Logs

Helping companies communicate better

Blogging Advice

Your Business Blog Needs To Be On Your Site

Your business blog should be part of your site. However, Krishna De writes that many businesses have opted to create their blog on third-party sites like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and Typepad.com.

She gives two reasons why it’s so much better to place your blog on your own domain.

First, you want the links of your blog to benefit your site. She writes:

If you are going to invest in business blogging, be good to yourself… don’t have all those wonderful incoming links to your great content go to a blog that is not hosted by you.

Links are the most important factor in achieving higher search traffic. If your blog is on your site, all the links pointing to your blog will raise the search traffic of your whole site including the home page and product pages.

Second, Krishna writes that a blog on your site “makes you makes you look like you take business blogging seriously as part of your online marketing strategy.”

More Reasons

To add to Krishna’s points, here are two more reasons to blog on your own domain.

It’s more professional.

The vast majority of blogs on these third-party sites are not commercially-oriented. Instead of associating your blog with these sites, associate your blog with your business.

Of course, you don’t want to alienate non-commercial bloggers. These bloggers will often be great sources of traffic. But you do want to make it clear that your blog is part of a business.

Finally, if you use a third-party site, they have control over your blog.

I’ve heard of horror stories about third-party sites deleting blogs because of terms of service violations. The bloggers didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. They tried to get their blogs restored but to no avail.

How to Switch Over

If you have your blog hosted by a third-party but want to move it to your site, here is my recommendation.

Write a blog post pointing your readers to the new URL. Also, remind them to update their RSS subscription to your new feed.

Creativity is the New Competitive Advantage

Mark McGuinness writes in Innovate or Die: Why Creativity Is Economic Priority Number One:

Economic advantage and professional success no longer come from the logical, analytical skills of knowledge workers but from creative, conceptual, and relationship skills.

No matter what business you are in, adding a small (or big) dose of creativity to your business can help it increase sales.

With more and more businesses going online, the internet is becoming overcrowded. There are only 10 spots on Google’s first page. If you’re in a competitive niche, you’ll need a way to stand out from the crowd and gain the attention of internet users so they keep coming back to your site.

By harnessing your creativity and producing something unique, you can capture the attention of prospective customers.

Creativity definitely applies to business bloggers. It’s not enough to create content. You need to create compelling content.

Think like a magazine publisher. Your blog is the magazine, but instead of selling ads, you advertise your own product or service. So ask yourself:

  • What will my readers find interesting?
  • What kind of content will entertain my readers?

Blogs are not college textbooks. While your posts may inform and educate, make sure to also add some flair to your posts. Check out some popular magazines in your industry. Copy their headline templates because those are the creative words that hook readers to pick up a copy. Also, find out which topics are being covered and see how those topics are being covered in a creative way.

This type of research can help you write less boring, more interesting posts.

The Foundations of Good Business Blogging

If you’re thinking of starting a business blog, you’re probably wondering, “Will it work?”

Are business blogs worth it?  Maybe you’ve heard success stories of businesses that used blogs to increase their sales and improve their brand.  Maybe you’ve heard how online business has become social, so you need to start a blog to join the conversation.

But still, you’re wondering, “Will it work for me?  Will it work for my business?”

In my experience and research, I’ve found five characteristics that successful business blogs share in common.  I believe if you have these five characteristics, your blog will have a great chance of succeeding.

1) Passion

Are you passionate about your industry?  In a social environment like the internet, passionate bloggers attract the biggest crowds.

If you love your industry, that will come through in your blogging.  Your passion will attract other people who love your industry.  These people will become your evangelists.  They will tell others about your blog and your blog will grow through word of mouth.

However, if you don’t have that passion, if you’re blogging strictly to increase sales instead of blogging to add value to your industry, people will sense your selfishness and lack of passion.  They’ll visit other blogs instead of yours.

2) Knowledge

You don’t have to be the world’s foremost expert in your industry.  But you do need to know more than the average person that’s interested in your industry.

Fortunately, you can take time to do research to increase your knowledge.

3) Focus on readers

Successful bloggers understand their readers.  Instead of blogging about topics they find interesting, these bloggers are always asking questions like:

What would my readers find interesting?
What would they find useful?
What topics would entertain them?
What are their most common questions?

You can be more focused on your readers by going to places where they hang out (like forums and other blogs) and observing their interactions.

4) Consistency

If you keep your blog regularly updated, you will have a steady stream of traffic.  Your readers will be like avid magazine readers.  They will visit your blog regularly in anticipation of your newest post.

5) Patience

Successful blogs don’t happen overnight.  There is definitely a sowing period for most business blogs where you won’t have much traffic or comments.  However, if you’re patient, you’ll reap great rewards.

Business blogging is like building a reputation in real life.   It takes time to build a reputation but every little bit of counts even in the early days.  As you continue to add value in your industry through your posts, you’ll soon have the stellar reputation that leads to much higher traffic and sales.

Getting Smart About Taking Blogging Advice

There are hundreds of blogs out there that are writing entries solely on how to be a better blogger. Many of these authors aspire to become rich and successful simply because they are writing about how to become rich and successful, which has always been a cart-and-horse problem to me. When your blog is just starting and you barely have triple-digit RSS subscribers, who are you to tell anyone else how to blog and how to market a blog?

This is the problem I’ve always had with articles about “how to blog”, “how to get more traffic”, and “how to boost your RSS subscribers” — so many of these articles are written by blogs that have no business writing about these topics. Heck, even when I’ve had a blog with thousands of RSS subscribers I didn’t quite feel qualified to write on these topics because I knew I was still low on the totem pole. Of course you don’t have to be qualified to talk about a specific topic on your blog — you can talk about whatever you want — but I never wanted to do a potential disservice to my readers.

Opinions are like a**holes, everyone’s got one. Some people like to spam forums with links to their blog to gain traffic, and others like to write cohesive and witty comments. Obviously in that scenario you can figure out which is the better method, so why is the spammy tactic the one that so many people write about as an effective method for promoting your blog? One reason is that bombing forums with links is a common talking point on lists that give you “Top 100 Ways To Promote Your Blog” which are taken to heart by newer bloggers. Just because people include it in an article doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, so don’t take these lists at face value since many of them are created just to get traffic to their blog.

Blogs about blogging, articles about writing articles on your blog, when does the meta craziness end? Well just because information on blogging is abundant doesn’t mean that you should read one blog, one article, one author, and then call it the gospel. You need to fact-check your information, read a dozen lists and articles, create your own best practices, and then create strategies that work best for who you are, what your blog is about, and who you’re trying to reach. The same moral rules that apply in the real world also apply online, so whenever you come across a “tip” that seems a little shady, just ask yourself, “would doing this technique/method make me annoying to someone else?” and you’ll figure out what’s a bad idea and what’s not. It’s actually pretty simple, but sometimes the goal of having a check get mailed to you once a month is more alluring.

Don’t take tips from just anybody, in fact, don’t take tips from me at face value either. Read many things, decide for yourself, and then create strategies that still uphold your moral values. Doing everything that someone puts on a Top 100 list is a fast-track to nowhere. Doing a few things really well (like leaving smart comments, emailing authors that you appreciate, writing accurate & interesting entries) will get you well on your way and you didn’t even have to sacrifice your morals during the process.