Pretty much any business operating in the United States today has a blog, and many of those sites also have blogs. If you’ve ever seen them, you probably are aware that the majority of them are quite low quality products. Most business blogging efforts are unfocused and half-hearted, started because an executive heard that it’s a good idea to have a blog and so they tell an intern to start one up. Often times the blogs sound like poorly rehashed advertising bulletpoints that are uninteresting to read.
Business Blogging Tips and Best Practices
What most businesses don’t realize is that these blogs can be assets to their companies, particularly if they are in an industry that sees a lot of search engine traffic (technology, music, and movies all come to mind). The entire purpose of a blog is to allow the writer to open themselves up to the readers, so if you use your blog to give the readers access to your company or the industry as a whole, both the blog or the writer of the blog can build a reputation as an authoritative source, one that is regularly read and digested by fans of the company or medium.
A good example of this is Google itself. The head of its anti-spam department, Matt Cutts, has made himself extremely visible in the search engine optimization community, particularly due to the fact that he regularly releases videos on YouTube that discuss SEO in both theory and practice. His blog tends to be a little more personal, but it still touches on the main topics.
He has set himself up as an SEO authority and an insight into how Google thinks about what it’s currently doing in the SEO world. This allows Google to promote particular policies or changes in terms of service through him. If he were to release a video saying that Google has changed something in particular about its practices, or that it is releasing a new service, the SEO community would know within a day.
It also puts a more personal touch on the company. Instead of being a huge black box, he adds a little humanity to the company. Granted, many black hat SEO people are not fans of his, but they do know his name at least.
Small Business Blogging 101
If you want to create a community around your company in the same method, then you want to make a blog that is going to be about your industry as a whole, rather than just your particular company. If your company is the only thing you ever talk about, then chances are no one is going to read it (unless you are creating some truly innovative product, or are a major player on the level of Apple, Google, or Twitter). Most companies do not have the force of gravity like these do, so go big instead. Discuss where your industry is going, and how you plan to be a part of that transition. Talk about the business of being in your business, the features you want to add to your products, and maybe attempt to get a discussion started about the process. By going big, you are making the blog interesting to as many people as possible. Some companies are big enough to do this while just talking about themselves. Odds are, that is not the case for you.
As a personal example, I love reading about business in general, and I’m also a computer geek, so I absolutely adore reading about business practices and stories from the tech world. The website In Search of Stupidity, where it follows some massive business disasters of the past, is one of my favorite things to read. So any tech company that blogs about business as usual is going to get my attention. Write the definitive blog on securing venture capital, testing and refining user experiences, or even just how you find gnarly bugs in your software, and I will be there. And if you release a product that is useful to me, I will probably buy it.
Business Blogging Software
To be honest, you probably would be okay using WordPress or any other free CMS to host your blog. WordPress is the only blogging platform I have ever used that wasn’t a free site, and you can make it look as professional as you want it to. WordPress keeps your blog design and your content separate, so you can update the look any time you want and not worry about breaking anything.
Many people in the IT world think WordPress is too unprofessional to use. I happen to disagree, but do whatever works best for you. I can’t make any other recommendations, but considering how often WordPress is updated, and how you could install it into a different directory from the rest of your site, protecting it from being hacked, would be enough for me.
The Typical Business Blogger
If you are truly serious about getting lots of readers to your site, then social media is the way to go. Pick someone to be the head blogger and get them on Facebook and Twitter. Have them record a few videos and put them up on YouTube. Have them research forums and start to look for ways to genuinely offer valuable help to the people in those forums. You probably are going to need to have at least one person’s name attached to the blog, particularly for the social media, but you could use your company name as usernames, or have a team of people writing. People build relationships with other people though, so you may have a hard time being an anonymous head blogger.
Business Blogging Sites
The example I always give to people when discussing business blogs is Joel on Software. Joel Spolsky runs Fog Creek Software in New York City, but his blog over the past decade has very much been a place that he can either rant or just talk about tech in general. It’s a fantastic example of how to build relationships online by being open and honest with the community – he never hardsells his products, but he has built a lot of business through it, and many people in the tech world know Joel’s name thanks to the sound advice he offers. Read the best posts of the blog to get a good idea of what he offers.
The only good reason to start a business blog is if you intend to really nurture it. A listing of your PR statements is hardly even going to give you any SEO benefit. Use the blog to build relationships and discuss your industry as a whole, and you will build readers.
