Business Blogging 101: Why You Need a Blog, and How to Get One Started

By now, it’s no secret that all businesses should have a website. But a blog? Is that necessary? It sure is, and we’re going to tell you why.Think of your website as a book—it’s full of information about your business, but that information is known as static content. In other words, it doesn’t change all that often. A blog is more like a newspaper, with fresh content being added regularly.Why is this a good thing?

• Fresh content helps you stay connected with current customers
• Creating new, thought-provoking, “click-worthy” posts attracts potential customers to your site and introduces your company as a place to get helpful, relevant information.
• It’s good for your search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a complicated technique that Google, Bing, and other search engines use to determine where your website ranks in their list of results. The higher up the listing page, the better for your business. The more new, appropriately themed content your site has, the higher it will rank.
• According to HubSpot (a goldmine of blogging advice that we’ll return to in a moment), sites with active blogs get 55% more visitors and generate 67-88% more leads.

Blog Content: What to Write About

What types of content go into a business blog? For the most part, it should relate to your business or your industry. That means news and information your customers can use, such as explorations of services you offer, reviews of products you stock, interviews with employees or industry leaders, roundups of useful information from other sites, advance notices for upcoming sales and community events, and more. You can even blog about blogging (as we are doing here), so long as it helps your customers.

Finding Ideas for Your Blog

Finally, let’s talk about finding subject matter. After a while, even experienced bloggers run out of ideas. And, frankly, writing for blogs is a very different proposition than writing newsletters, emails, and flyers. If you’re having trouble coming up with content ideas, here are a couple ways to get started:

• Ask your customers
• Ask your employees
• Scan news headlines for items that resonate with your industry
• Reach out to a guest blogger to contribute a post or two
• Hire a professional blogger for a short- or long-term engagement

Starting a business blog takes time or money (if you choose to hire someone to do it for you), but it’s a worthwhile investment. To get started, check out HubSpot’s free ebook, An Introduction to Business Blogging. It’s a short and easy read, but one that every business blog owner needs.