Marketing

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Business Bloggers

Learn how to improve your professional blogging.

man in a flannel shirt with a coffee using a laptop

You have a business. You promote your business on your website. Somehow, you know you need a blog because it can help with search engine optimization (meaning clients have a better shot at finding you). Maybe you started one and abandoned it. Or maybe you’re just getting started and you’re at a loss.

Blogging as we know it wasn’t around thirty years ago when Steven Covey published his well-known book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” But his thesis — that one can become successful by aligning oneself to a series of series of universal principles — can definitely be applied.

Read on for seven principles that can guide your new (or improved) business blog.

Keep it Simple

You’re running a business: developing and selling a product or service, marketing to and managing clients, handling invoices and keeping the lights on. Don’t complicate matters by setting blogging goals you can’t possibly reach, like posting every day, or even writing five paragraph essays. Longer posts do tend to help with SEO, but be realistic about how much time you (or your staff) really have to devote to producing high quality posts.

Be Consistent

Make it a habit to post on certain days of the week, and stick to it. Develop a content calendar based on events, specials or other notable periods in your business and shape your content around that. Regular blogging communicates to your audience that you can be relied upon.

Blog Broadly

If all you do is brag about your products, your prospects and clients will get bored quickly. Show them behind the scenes at your headquarters, and use your blog to highlight your staff or congratulate your clients on their own successes (beyond hiring you, of course). Add in Q&A posts plus those that demonstrate how to use your product or service. That said: be thoughtful about your content. Balance your self-promotion by sharing relevant information that has a benefit for your current or prospective clients.

Think Visually

Show, don’t just tell. Use photos, flat lays and video to round out your posts and keep your blog interesting. After all, a picture IS worth a thousand words. And when you’re promoting your blog, using video also helps attract more viewers and improves your SEO ranking.

Consult Your Customers

They know what they want to read about. Invite them to comment on your posts, submit topic ideas and solicit their feedback. When they leave a comment, respond! This is another way to engage with your clients, which builds your relationship with them and demonstrates your responsiveness to prospects: a win-win for your brand’s reputation.

Crunch the Numbers

Don’t ignore the data. Review your posts’ analytics periodically to see what’s working and what isn’t, and adjust your content accordingly. But don’t let strictly data dictate your blog.

Sharing is Caring

You may have heard the mantra “If you build it, they will come.” That’s not necessarily true with blog posts. You have to proactively promote your content as part of an integrated marketing strategy. Don’t just rely on social media; diversify your posts by sharing them in videos, live events, webinars, email marketing efforts and newsletters.

You don’t have to try all seven tips at once. Use one or more to tweak your strategy and you’ll soon be on your way to a blog that connects with your audience (and possibly converts some of them into paying customers). Want to get a jump start by learning how to track your data? We’ll show you the basics of of Google Analytics at our next Lunch & Learn.

Alexis

About Alexis

Journalist and blogger Alexis Barton has loved language and the written word for as long as she can remember; she earned her Masters in Journalism from the University of Alabama before joining us here at Infomedia where she puts her skills to work researching, interviewing and writing web copy for our clients, our own blog and our social media channels. She might be a self-described “grammar nerd,” but she promises she isn’t judging your texts, emails or emoji usage. When she isn’t at the keyboard, Alexis loves shopping, napping and obsessing over Alabama football.

See more articles from Alexis Barton

You Might Also Like

Join Our Newsletter

Don’t miss out on what’s going on at Infomedia! Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for updates and helpful tips and information.

* indicates required