If you are running a small business and would like to swim with the big players, your time should be better spent on a solid marketing strategy. Developing a solid marketing strategy involves different outreach campaigns on various platforms.
For example, you need to have a content marketing strategy for your blogging niche that will attract potential customers and lead to a higher conversion rate. To implement a content marketing strategy efficiently, you need to have a blog that promotes the business. Here is how to create a successful business blog:
Register the Business’ Domain
The first step in creating a blog for promoting your small business is registering a domain. A domain name serves as the address where the business will be found on the internet, also known as a URL.
A business blog domain usually has a structure like this: wwww.companyname.com, this is the most effective in the U.S. In other countries, you can use a country-specific domain that ends with the country name abbreviation.
For example, in the United Kingdom, the area-specific domain name ends with co.uk. A business blog domain in this part of the country would look like this www.companyname.co.uk. The suffix of a domain name is very important because it makes a great impact on the decision-making of customers.
For example, blogs that end with .net, .xyz, .online may paint a negative image of the business. Although these domains are very cheap but they do not contribute to a positive brand image and can ruin your efforts of promoting the business.
For the name, select something that pertains to your business. A name like Xpert Remodelers is a better choice than Instamodels when you are in a renovation or contractor business. The idea is to have a meaningful name that represents your brand even though it’s a bit misspelled for the sake of creativity.
Get Hosting for the Blog
Once you have secured a domain name for the business blog, the next step is securing a hosting service provider. The hosting service provider you choose should be reliable and have the ability to connect clients fast to blog pages they want. When choosing the hosting service provider, ensure that it is compatible with the content management software you will use.
A lot of marketers and bloggers prefer using WordPress as their content management tool because of its versatility. With WordPress, you will have a variety of options regarding hosting service providers. There are various hosting services you can choose from when using WordPress and the most popular one is BlueHosting.
Other hosting service providers you can use with WordPress include HostGator, GreenGeeks, DreamHost, A2 Hosting, and Hostinger, just to name a few. Another feature you should look out for when choosing a hosting service provider is the security of their systems. Your website should be secure from various attacks, including DDoS attacks, which are the most common cyberattacks against blogs.
Carefully Select a Theme
To get access to a variety of themes that are easy to use and build sites with, you should use content management software like WordPress. The platform has a variety of themes that are developed by a lot of website developers and you should select the best one for your business.
When selecting the best theme for the business, you should consider the colors on the branding and the type of industry the company is trading in. Generally, WordPress themes are categorized by industry and sometimes even by the niche of businesses. Therefore, getting a perfect looking theme relevant to the business should not be hard.
Although that is true, you need to remember that looks are not everything but also performance and speed counts. Choosing a theme that takes a long time to load will be detrimental for the blog; thus, it is more prudent choosing amongst lighter themes. Once you have found the perfect theme, the blog will be technically ready to host all the content created on behalf of the business.
Set goals for yourself
After completing the technical setup of the website, you need to start setting goals for yourself before creating and uploading content. The backbone of the business’ blog is the reason why you created the website and that will dictate the goals of this marketing campaign. For content, hire professional bloggers and article writers from Academized.
Look for an expert thesis writer if you are in a business that needs research papers, white papers or any detailed writing work to be uploaded on the website.
There are various reasons you might want to create a business blog including brand awareness, marketing an eCommerce store, or providing more insight about products or services. If your intention is to provide more insight into a product range, the goals you will set will primarily involve providing how-to content to customers.
If the primary reason was building brand awareness or marketing an eCommerce store, the goals you will set are related to getting more eyeballs to see the content.
You can then start setting relative goals like the amount of traffic expected and a projected conversion rate. Be sure that the projecting and goals you set are realistic because that information will be used to build a content marketing plan.
Create a Content Marketing Plan
A content marketing plan is essential when starting out a business blog because it will dictate the way you reach customers and measuring the success or lack thereof. Before beginning to create content for the business’ blog, you should conduct research about the targeted audience.
That research makes up part of the content marketing plan and will thereafter affect the decisions you make about the type of blog posts made on the site.
For example, a content marketing plan should include the subject matter the blog will cover as a result of the findings of customer research. When creating the content marketing plan, you should also set KPIs that will be used to monitor the progress of the blog and improve the site as time goes on.
Build a Schedule and Stick to it
Before you even begin posting on your business blog, there must be an established schedule. The schedule serves the purpose of ensuring that the blog does not die on the vine by lacking content and subsequently disinteresting visitors. You must adhere to the schedule and ensure that the relevant content is posted at the indicated time.
When drafting up the schedule ensures that there will be enough content to keep viewers interested. You might have to be a little bit aggressive at the beginning to fill up the site with enough content. When time goes on, you should set more relaxed goals that will dictate the amount of content required per week.
Some experts argue that a blog should have new content at least twice a week and you can follow this principle. If you are a busy business person, you can schedule posting articles beforehand. Set aside one day in the week to prepare and schedule the posting schedule of the blog post for the following seven days.
Implement SEO Strategies
SEO is an essential marketing strategy that should never be ignored when creating content for a business blog. If you ignore SEO practices, the entire purpose of running a blog will be lost.
Without content that is optimized for search engines, your blog will be very hard to discover because it will get lower rankings. When a blog does not appear on the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP), it will get very low traffic.
The vast majority of internet users do not bother with going to the second SERP, which stresses the importance of implementing SEO. One of the best methods of doing so is creating high-quality content that prioritizes users and adds value to them.
Other SEO factors that should be in mind include researching and using competitive keywords. Google has made the SEO principles he uses to rank website pages available by compiling a set of guidelines and posting them online. You should read the Google Webmaster Guidelines thoroughly when creating content for the business’ blog.
Use Relevant Visuals
A blog post is not complete until it has some visuals included in it to make it more interesting to users. Do not make the mistake of posting blog posts that do not have visuals which can be as simple as an image. Some blogs also include a video to get customers to spend a little while longer on the website.
Another mistake you can possibly make is posting an article that has visuals that are not relevant to the content. You need to ensure that both the visuals and written content correspond before posting the blog article.
If you are wondering where visuals can be sourced, there are stock image websites with almost every picture or video that might be needed for a blog. You can scour through these websites to find the visuals needed for your blog post. Sourcing images here can help you avoid facing potential legal blowback of using copyrighted photos.
The Bottom Line
Starting a successful blog for promoting your small business involves various factors, such as choosing the perfect domain, hosting, and theme. These factors of a blog should be fast, secure, and reliable but most importantly, they must also be user-friendly. You must also form a solid content marketing strategy that will ensure that the performance of the blog is monitored for future improvement purposes.
Author Bio
Alice Jones is a digital marketer and a blogger from San Francisco, California. She is a specialist in social media, email marketing, and online advertising. Alice is a passionate traveler and a devoted yoga practitioner.
