Why do I need a business blog?

Is a business blog essential? It’s quite a common question. A lot of people feel a blog isn’t necessary when starting their business, or maybe they just simply don’t have enough time, or the blog isn’t a priority to them. But truthfully, a business blog is DEFINITELY an essential in your business. It should for sure be up there in your list of priorities. Let’s take a look at why a business blog is essential.

1. It lets your readers/clients know you’re active

If you’re not posting blogs to your site at all, or even regularly, your readers are likely to think you’re inactive. Or they may even think you’ve just not bothered to write blogs, which is arguably worse! Keep your blog posts consistent by creating a posting schedule! Whether it’s once a week or three times a week, make a schedule that’s appropriate for your business, and for your readers.

2. It increases visibility and organic traffic to your website

A business blog can have a massive impact on your visibility as a business, and increase organic traffic to your website. The more blogs you write that are engaging for your audience, the more clicks your websites going to get, which in turn increased your ranking on organic search results. And of course, the higher you rank, the more visible you are! Make sure when writing blogs you’re using the relevant key words that you want to rank for so people can actually find your blog.

3. Makes more content for social media

Content, content, content. It’s absolutely essential to keeping your clients engaged. Whilst you need to be posting regular content on your socials, posting blogs on your website also allows more content for said socials. Along with your posting schedule, make sure you’ve got a post with a visual to promote it with on your Instagram, Facebook etc. Promotion on your socials will not only increase the visibility of your blogs, but also fill up your feed, which will increase your engagement if you’re posting regularly.

4. It helps others!

Whilst posting blogs is massively helpful for you and your business, it’s also going to be helping other people! Blogs are there to give out information, advice, tips, and authentic stories people can resonate with. No matter what your blog is about its going to help out someone. We all need different things, so having a blog that people can learn from is important. My passion is helping others, and of course, I do that through the services that I offer. However, blogs can be just as helpful to the reader! This is incredibly rewarding. 

But how do I write a blog?

It can be hard to get started with a blog, especially if you’ve never written one before, or if you don’t have much writing experience in general. But having one makes a huge difference, and over time as you gain experience your writing skills will improve and it will come much more naturally to you. Here’s what I do when I’m trying to write a blog…

1. ‘Brain dump’ topics related to your industry

What I like to do first is what I call ‘brain dump’. Just write down absolutely everything you can think of! Words, phrases, questions. Absolutely everything. Whether this is in a list, a mind map, or just scribbled all over a page, do what works for you!

2. Find which words peak your interest, and what’s relevant

The next thing I like to do is get out a highlighter, and go through and highlight each individual word or phrase that I think sounds interesting, or maybe something I might like to write about. Think about what seems the most impactful. Don’t worry about exactly what you could write to do with it, just consider if it’s interesting and relevant, and if so, highlight it!

Once I’ve got my favourite ones highlighted, I take those on a different page and consider some headlines I may be able to relate to each one. Go through and write a list of any headlines, discussion topics, or how-to’s you could write about. Pick your favourites!

3. Figure out and make notes on you already know

Once you’ve got your potential headlines down. Go ahead and pick one to start writing about! I start by making notes on everything I already know about the topic. This way it’s as authentic and genuine as possible to me, and as original as it can be.

I’ll usually go ahead and start typing these on to my computer to try and get some sort of structure sorted as well!

4. Research, research, research and get blogging!

Research! Once you’ve got down what you already know, if you feel it needs more or needs fleshing out at all, do some research. Find similar blogs and see what they have to say. DON’T COPY! Just draw inspiration and use it to see if there are any key points you may have missed.

Once you’ve got all your notes down, get blogging! I like to organise my notes, research and ideas into my subheadings to help me structure my blog, and then start writing. 

5. You can repurpose content

ALL CONTENT IS CONTENT. You don’t just have to write about one thing one time. You can take past blog posts or previous content, and pick parts out. Put them together in one blog, or choose a section from one and dive even deeper into it. There’s always something to write about, and it’s tricky to come up with original content. But there’s always ways to have a new perspective that someone may find very helpful. Revamp old content! 

Top tips to structure your blog

The structure of your business blog is key in attracting more readers, and ensuring they stay on your website. If it looks complicated or it’s just huge blocks of text, it’s going to disinterest the reader, which will ultimately make them click back off of your website.

Let’s get technical for a second. The amount of times someone has clicked back off of your website is called a ‘bounce rate’. It determines how many times someone’s clicked that back arrow and gone to find the same information someone else. Ultimately, the higher your bounce rate, the lower down you’re going to rank in a search engines organic results.

1. Write with a simple structure

As I’ve said above, a complicated looking blog isn’t going to grab the reader’s attention. Make sure the structure is appropriately simple for your website. If its easy to read, blog-seekers will be much more inclined to read your content, which will ultimately increase your visibility, and get yourself more clicks to your website.

2. Make sure it flows

Your blog must have a good flow, don’t make it choppy. Use a wide range of sentence lengths and grammar techniques to keep it interesting and let the words flow nicely together. The easier it is to read, the better the user-experience!

3. Don’t overload info

Whilst a blogs purpose is to inform and teach, don’t overload on information. Make sure everything you’re writing is relevant, and if you have to include loads of information, make good use of subheadings and bullet points to help separate the text and keep it easy on the eyes.