{"id":63460,"date":"2011-11-15T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=63460"},"modified":"2013-07-15T14:26:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T18:26:38","slug":"how_to_blog_for_business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/how_to_blog_for_business\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Blog for Your Business: 6 Pearls of Wisdom for Entrepreneurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you’ve been living underneath a rock for the past ten or eleven years, you probably already know how important blogging is for your business.<\/p>\n

\"Tips
Use a blog to grow your business presence on the web<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling WordPress plugins or watermelons – if your business has any kind of online presence at all, you can raise your profile – and ultimately your profits – by running a blog.<\/p>\n

Provided, of course, that it’s done correctly. These are six pieces of advice on how to blog for business and make your online efforts worthwhile.<\/p>\n

1. Pretend you’re a charity<\/h2>\n

\"BloggingAt the most basic level, the purpose of any business blog is to make money. But you have to pretend that this isn’t the case.<\/p>\n

When creating blog content, put all thoughts of profit out of your mind. Imagine that the only reason in the world you’re running the blog is to help people.<\/p>\n

Don’t ask yourself questions like “Will this blog post earn me money?”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Instead, ask yourself “Will people find this blog post useful? Does is solve a problem? Are readers like to share it around the web?”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Once you get into the “all give, no take” mindset, the value of your content will increase tremendously.<\/p>\n

Don’t use your blog to sell – use it to build trust and credibility. Then use trust and credibility to sell.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. People luuurve freebies<\/h2>\n

\"HowThere’s something hardwired into the human psychology that makes us go weak at the knees for free stuff. A gift, no matter how large or small, is one of the quickest ways to capture people’s attention.<\/p>\n

A mini eBook, a $20 discount voucher, a ‘two for one’ – your freebie doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. It just has to be free. Getting something for nothing is a very powerful incentive, and one which you can use to your advantage.<\/p>\n

Give your blog readers a little something for free, and they’re far more likely to visit again (and tell their friends).<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Build an email list<\/h2>\n

\"BuildCapturing a list of email addresses is important to keep your customers – both current and future – in the loop, and speak to them directly when you’ve got something important to say (or sell).<\/p>\n

Take a look around the web, and you’ll see that a vast majority of successful blogs operate an email list.<\/p>\n

So how do you persuade people to give you their contact details? A standard blogging\/marketing technique is to give people a freebie in exchange for signing up to the email list.<\/p>\n

So if you’re offering something for free on your blog, consider making it a trade: the freebie for the email address.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We’ve covered email lists in depth over the last few weeks here at WPMU – check out these articles<\/a> for a tonne of great advice and ideas.<\/p>\n

4. Know what your readers want<\/h2>\n

\"HowCanvassing your audience for content ideas is a great way to keep your blog focused, and it also means that your readers are doing part of your work for you.<\/p>\n

Don’t be afraid to speak directly to your readership and ask them what they would like to see more of. Create a survey, or run a poll on your blog.<\/p>\n

Again, use a freebie. Offering readers something in exchange for their input will net you a whole lot more responses. <\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Get some talent<\/h2>\n

\"IdeasIf you’re not a natural born writer, you’re better off outsourcing your business blog to someone who is. You can use websites like Elance<\/a> and oDesk<\/a> to find freelance blog writers.<\/p>\n

The time and effort that outsourcing will save you is well worth the money spent, and you’ll have better quality blog content to show for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

6. Diversify, man<\/h2>\n

A key mistake that many business bloggers make is sticking too closely to their own field of expertise. Creating authoritative articles in your own niche is very important – but you need to spread your wings a little further than that or you’ll probably run out of ideas pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

Don’t let your blog get repetitive – duplicate content is a big no no. Try to strike a balance between articles that are highly relevant to your own business, and more general stuff that will appeal to a broader (but still targeted) audience.<\/p>\n

How do YOU blog for business?<\/h2>\n

If you’ve got some experience running a blog for your business (or someone else’s), we’d love to hear any tips and tricks you’ve picked up along the way. Drop us a line in the comments section below.<\/p>\n

Thanks to o5com<\/a>, Shereen M<\/a>, Sunshine City<\/a>, Alina Sofia<\/a>, Mike Licht<\/a> and Luxamart<\/a> for the images.<\/em><\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are some insights on using a blog to build your customer base – no matter what kind of business you run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7007,"featured_media":63758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[639,106],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-63460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc","tag-blogging","tag-email"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7007"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198148,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63460\/revisions\/198148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63460"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=63460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}