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10 Important Steps For Better Small Business Blogging

1.  Create Your Blog

There are a number of different free blogging platforms you can utilize to create your business blog. WordPress and Blogger are the most common. Once you have signed up and created your business blog, the next step is to figure out where you want that blog to be located. The most popular examples used by most current business Webmasters include

  • http://SITENAME.com/BLOG
  • http://BLOG.SITENAME.com and
  • http://SITENAMEBLOG.com

Usually, any of the above style are fine, it basically depends on your personal preferences.

2. Writing Effective Blog Posts

The goal of many small business blogs is to showcase knowledge/expertise and become an industry leader. Some posts should be strictly informative, others opinions, some made as commentary about recent news or events, and others a combination of all three. It is important to keep the blog posts are at a reasonable length, as attention spans can sometimes be short. Also, longer articles can be broken down into multiple posts.

In addition, be aware of others who may be commenting on your posts, and be sure to respond if the situation requires it. Constructive interaction may lead to more word of mouth followers. Just be sure to keep an open mind when dealing with others’ opinions. It is also helpful to include any relevant pictures, links, or audio/video that may help your readers. This can make the difference between a good or bad post. Finally, remember to determine who your readers are (or who you want them to be) and cater for them.

3. Find Similar Blogs

You can start looking for related blogs by using search engines. Search using relevant keywords + “blog”. You should use the singular and plural form of the keywords for each search. For example (a travel website) – “travel blog”, “traveling blogs”, “travel planning blogs”, “tourism blogs”, “vacation blogs”,  etc.

Search on multiple engines (e.g. Bing, Google, Ask.com, etc) as you will come up with more results that way. After finding related, high quality blogs bookmark them or put them in a spreadsheet. Keeping track of everything can save headaches later on.

After finding and organizing your potential candidates you should subscribe to their blog. This normally involves submitting your email address and/or website with some simple personal information. After subscribing you will be updated when there are new posts and also when others reply to your comments.

*Note- It might be a good idea to make a new email address dedicated entirely to following others’ blogs. This way you can separate your personal email from your blog-related email.

4. Interact With The Related Blogs You Have Found

Most blog owners will post updates anywhere from 1-10 times per week. Considering the amount of related blogs you may have found, this can be an overwhelming amount of information. So my advice, comment only on posts you have knowledge of or feel strongly about. To show your expertise your comments need to be thought provoking. After a few comments, regular readers will be aware of your expertise, and then visit your own blog – this will lead to more readers for you.

Furthermore, it is a good idea to mix-up the type of comments that you make. Debate if you disagree with something, or agree with others and tell them why. You may want to add something to some posts. Either way, it’s important to switch it up.

5. Comment On Business Related Articles And News

The internet is filled with articles and news pertaining to your area of business. Start by doing a search for the different types of articles you would like to add to. Use searches like “tourism articles”, “travel planning articles”, “cheap vacations articles”, etc. Also, use any relevant keywords with the word “articles” or “article” at the end and you will know doubt find thousands of possible places to comment and add a link back to your blog. Get creative with your searches. You can be as specific or broad as you like. Focus on the highest ranking articles, as these will be seen more and result in more people reading your comments.

The second part of this step is to stay up with current business news. These get the most traffic, however they usually attract many comments which can make it easy for yours to get lost and overlooked. It is important to pay attention to the regulars commenting on these types of articles. They are usually leads to finding new blogs and potential interaction and/or networking.

Finally, when commenting on news articles, it is important to keep your responses shorter and to the point. Don’t forget to add your website’s hyperlink.

6. Submitting To Relevant Blog Directories

In order to make your blog easy to find, it can help to submit to multiple blog directories. This involves doing a number of searches and using keywords followed by the word “blog(s)” + the words “directory” or “directories”. After this, you can search for and submit your site to general blog directories. Note that “blog directory”, “blog directories”, and “free blog directory” are good keywords to start your searches with.

7. Look For Guest Blogging Opportunities

There are many websites dedicated to bringing together bloggers and people looking for guest blog spots. Start with some simple searches and elaborate as needed. “Travel guest blogging” “Guest blogging opportunities” etc are good keywords that can be used to find guest blogging opportunities.

It also helps to be able to contact other blogs in your industry and ask to guest blog for them. This step becomes much simpler once you have built a relationship with them.

8. Bookmarking And Spinning

Every time you write a new blog post it should be submitted to all of the various social bookmarking sites. Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Folkd, and Stumble Upon – just to name a few. This provides instant backlinks to your posts and can also help them to get indexed quicker.

Many informative blog posts can be “spun” into articles and submitted to different article sites. If done correctly this can increase exposure and provide useful backlinks. Some of the most effective article websites are: Ezinearticles, Squidoo, and Hubpages.

9. Utilize Existing Channels And Contacts

This one is a no brainer. After you have made a few posts and your blog is looking good, reach out to anyone you already know that might be interested. Start with employees, clients, suppliers, and anyone else in your industry. Use email, twitter, facebook, and even phone calls to spread the word.

This step will help you gain a good base of followers and is a great starting point. People tend to follow blogs that already have a lot of followers.

10. Conclusion:

There are many additional factors and tactics that can be utilized, but they are advanced and for another article. Overall blogging is an effective tool to get you and your small business noticed. If people are searching for anything related to your business and you don’t have a blog…you are missing out!

Written By

I ball hard in my spare time to get that cheddar. And I love doing it. I work selling Bar Mitzvah invitations, custom wrapping paper and more for Expressionables.com

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Torie

    May 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    Nice post. Its always nice to be refreshed once in a while on some different steps to market your blog.

  2. joe

    May 15, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Hey Chris, thanks for your tips. At least some of them, I intend to use.
    I would add another point that many people forget that sometimes, although it is very simple. And is, to bring real value to your site visitors. I mean, if you do everything you can to bring visitors to your site …. And now what they see there? That’s what’s important.

  3. Sara

    May 17, 2011 at 12:11 am

    These are some great tips in order to start a blog pertaining to your business. With the online market being so competitive, I need all the help I can get. With the suggested username/URLs for a blog, does it matter which style you pick in reference to accessibility and keywords?

  4. Manifo

    May 18, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    The hardest thing is to find a good topic for your blog post. i know something about it 😉 you have to be creative and update with all news. Interesting topic means more readers. Also very important is to be regular! Your blog must be alive 😉

  5. JMontes

    May 21, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    looks so simple. thanks for sharing all of these.

  6. andrewsumpter

    May 23, 2011 at 3:31 am

    In looking for the best blog topic you need to make sure that this topic is very interesting to the readers. You need to know always what the readers want.

  7. Luqman

    May 23, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    Thanks for sharing this write up, it is very informative and will really help if one can work on them.

  8. Ofo

    May 25, 2011 at 6:01 am

    Great post however the key thing to remember is not to become a spammer. I have turned down comments on my site that were obvious spammers trying to take advantage of my blog being a dofollow blog.

  9. TracyAnn0312

    December 11, 2011 at 4:27 am

    Writing unique blog contents can help people in order to built small business into a big bunch of chocolate blogging business. Thank you for sharing wonderful write up to us readers!

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