So you’ve got a website for your business and you’re thinking, now what? Well, you need traffic on your website if you want to start making money and one of the best ways to do that is with blogging for small businesses.
What is Blogging for Small Businesses?
Blogging for businesses is a fairly simple concept. You create a blog on your business website and use it to write blog posts related to your industry.
Why is Blogging Important for Small Businesses?
Blogging for small businesses is one of the best ways to improve your website’s SEO. You can target new keywords and searches with each post and create huge amounts of additional content for your website.
Particularly if you are service-based, chances are you’ll have 5-10 website pages in total, but with a blog that quickly adds up as each new blog post is a new page on your website. It’s also fresh content and search engines love fresh content.
Additionally, blogging for your business is a fantastic way to position yourself as experienced and authoritative within your industry. It shows people that you know your stuff and if you’re willing to give away information for free, imagine what your paid services must be like!
Will Blogging Work for my Small Business?
Absolutely. Blogging works for every type of business and businesses of any size. It’s particularly good for small businesses because it helps to raise your profile on search engines and with your audience.
What’s the Best Website Platform for Small Business Blogs?
I always recommend WordPress for small business websites because it ranges from one-page websites to e-commerce powerhouses and comes with built-in blogging features right out of the box.
Without any additional SEO tools, WordPress is one of the better platforms for search engine optimisation which means you don’t have to do as much additional SEO work to your posts as you would with another platform. To really boost your chances of small business SEO, install RankMath and use it to guide your blog post optimisation.
In a nutshell, blogging for small businesses is so much easier if you’re using the WordPress (.org) website platform.
How to Blog for Small Business
Ok, let’s get to the good stuff! Understanding how to blog for your business is going to help you create a blog for your small business that drives traffic, generates leads and positions you as a “top dog” in your industry. So it’s a good thing you’re here!
You should use your small business blog to share tutorials, insider tips and work examples related to your industry. As an example, if you’re a landscape gardener you might share your best tips for keeping your lawn hydrated during the hot summer months, or if you’re a hairdresser you might share the most popular hairstyles that are trending right now.
The goal is not to go in with the hard sell on your blog post, it’s to inform and nurture your website traffic. Once you’ve won them over with your amazing content, then you can go in for the hard sell, comfortable in the knowledge that they’re a warm lead because they love your stuff.
Ok, now we’re really going to get to the good stuff!
Carry Out Keyword Research
Before you start planning your blog posts, it’s essential that you carry out keyword research so you know exactly what your target audience wants to learn about. You can use a free tool like Answer The Public to help you understand exactly what questions are being asked related to your industry.
Aim to spend around an hour on your keyword research so you’ve got a good 10-20 blog post ideas at the end of it. That way you don’t have to do it for each blog post and you can create a content calendar for your blog so you know what you’ll be posting and when.
Plan Your Blog Posts in Advance
When blogging for small businesses, you’re best to plan out your blog posts in advance. This works particularly well if your industry has season-specific trends or your bigger picture projects in future months.
Keep in mind that SEO takes 3-6 months to “kick in” for most small business websites, and blogging for small businesses is no exception to this rule, so consider writing your Christmas-related content in September/October to increase your chances of showing up on search engines when searches will be peaking for those keywords.
Additionally, if you’re hoping to gain traction on social media with your blog posts, get on top of trends as they’re emerging and keep your blog posts relevant to the current climate.
How to Write Your Small Business Blog Posts
Your business blog posts should be a minimum of 500 words but ideally 1000+ words if SEO is part of your game plan. Blogging for small businesses is all about generating leads and appearing professional so ensure you check your spelling, grammar and facts before you hit publish. Don’t let yourself get caught out with a poorly researched fact or embarrassing typo!
Ensure to include images in your blog posts to create visual examples along with your tips and keep readers interested in your content.
The Best Way to Title Your Blog Posts
Your blog posts need titles that are going to attract people. When your posts show up on Google or social media platforms, they’ll show your post title and a snippet from your blog post (depending on your website platform and SEO tools, these are controlled by your meta title and description) and you want to ensure that your title encourages clicks.
Popular styles for blog post titles include:
- Numbered posts: 10 Ways to Boost Website Traffic, 21 Beautiful Website Designs for Female Entrepreneurs, 7 Tools For Automating Your Social Media Marketing
- How to style: How to Grow Your Own Vegetables, How to Create a Business for Free, How to Clean Leather Shoes.
- Intriguing titles: 9 Mind-Blowing Destinations for Your Next Holiday, The Most Delicious Brownies You’ll Ever Bake, How to Host a Killer Launch Event
Your Blog Post Structure
Take this blog post as a google example of how to structure your posts. The longer the word count, the more different elements you’ll need to break up your blog post content.
Use lists, images and headers to break your content up into bite-sized chunks that are easy to skim and read, this will satisfy people who just want to know one specific thing from your blog post rather than the whole thing.
Stay Consistent With Blogging For Small Businesses
The worst thing you can do is create a blog on your small business website and only post once. Regularly blogging for small businesses shows consistency and dedication which are two qualities potential customers will love to see.
If you are short on time, consider hiring an assistant or copywriter to help you keep up with at least one new blog post per month. If you have a team, you could consider delegating each member to a specific blog post topic and having them write it on a quiet afternoon.
Quick, Dirty Blog Post Ideas
If you’re really short on time and desperate to get a blog post up, you might consider one of the following styles to fill the gaps in your content schedule until you can write a lengthy, informative post.
- Roundup posts: These will typically feature images, descriptions and links to other websites for more information. You can do this for ANY industry, for example, I could write one featuring 15 web design trends from 2020 and link out to other websites.
- Recent work: Another style of roundup posts, you can include images and/or links where relevant and short descriptions of work you’ve carried out for recent customers.
- Case studies: This one might take you a bit of time but depending on your industry you may already be writing case studies in shorter form on your social media platforms, or as part of your promotional material for future clients. Turn these into blog posts!
- Repurpose: If you’re writing content for your social media platforms then chances are you’ll have plenty of blog posts in the making to work with. Take one of your recent post captions and turn it into a long-form blog post to provide more information.
How to Get Eyes on Your Small Business Blog Posts
Make sure you share your blog posts on all of your social media platforms at the optimum times for your social media followers. This may be different for each platform, so take the time to schedule your promotions for when you’re likely to get more eyes on your small business blog.
At the end of your blog posts, encourage people to share the post if they found it useful and hopefully they will share it with their social media followers in turn.
Finally, ensure your sitemap has been submitted to Google Search Console so that Google bots will pick up your post. This will help increase your chances of showing up on search engines for your keywords.
Blogging for Small Businesses: Final Tips
If you enjoy writing then you’ll fall in love with blogging for your small business in no time. It’s a fantastic way to connect with your audience on a deeper level and without a doubt, it will showcase your industry expertise.
If you’re not a lover of writing then that doesn’t mean you should give up on the idea of blogging for small businesses, in fact, it could be just the thing you need to discover a new passion! Alternatively, you could hire out this work to a virtual assistant or copywriter and have them create one blog post per month. This will be a cheap and worthwhile investment for your business.
Finally, if you find you’re falling behind with your blogging schedule then don’t panic! Once you have a backlog of blog posts it’s fine to skip the odd couple, as long as you stay consistent and keep your blog up to date once every 3 months you should be fine.
That being said, make sure you dedicate as much time as you can to adding new and relevant content to help increase your SEO and overall visibility.
If you found this post helpful, please take a moment to share it with your network in the hopes they may find it useful too!
