How To Create a Blog For Your Business Checklist

If you want to create a blog for your business then you need to understand your customers and write content that they are going to find useful and engaging. Do your homework and you will get more traffic, more click and more leads. However, it does take time to get it right and for your content to be on target with your customers. You need to prepared to make mistakes and learn from them. Below is a ‘How to create a blog for your business checklist,’ however if you’d like to see a more comprehensive explanation read my blog post, 21 Quick Tips On How to Write A Blog For Your Business

• Define who your customers/clients are – for example, size, turnover, niche, sector, geography, demographic, etc.
• Find your customers/clients online – find out where they are and connect with them
• Use social media listening tools – use tools available to listen in to your potential customers/clients (Read my article on Social Media Listening Tools)
• Understand your customer/clients problems – what information are they searching for, what service problems do they have, is their misunderstanding about a product or service, do they have wishlists?
• Identify how you can help them- this is where you need to be realistic and match what you and your business are good at to their problems
• Review The Competition – Take into account what your competition are blogging about, what topics they are focusing on
• Identify how you can help your customers/clients – What do you stand for and why should people follow your – what is the core message that will attract and be relevant to your audience
• Set your goals, objectives and metrics – This is the critical part. If you are going to invest in blogging set your self some clear goals for the results. What do you want to achieve (be realistic) and what business benefit will it deliver (e.g. 5 leads per week)
• Develop your strategy and tactics – Figure out how your blog content fits to your overall marketing plan and communications mix
• Build your blog –  Invest in a blog that is going to fit to your brand and be easy for people to engage with – I recommend WordPress
• Build out marketing functionality – Your blog needs to be able to turn traffic into buying customers and to do that you need to have the right marketing functionality. Looking good is not enough. Build in your key conversion points and methods to convert customers
• Add in tracking (e.g. goals so you can measure performance)
• Link your social and email- Hook up your blog with your social networks so that people can easily share your content. Also build in your email subscriptions to build your email list
• Develop your editorial calendar – This is probably on of the most important steps. An editorial calendar will help stay focused and give you a good schedule to work to. It is even more important if you have more than 1 person in your business blogging
• Research your keywords and phrases – develop the SEO that is right for your blog
• Develop your killer headlines – Your titles make the difference between a click and no-click a share and just a read. Spend time coming up with awesome titles
• Write your blog  – Write your blogs and rewrite them. Find your own personal voice and practice – it takes to to develop a writing style that is right for you. Write as if you are talking to your target client/customer and helping them
• Publish to your social networks – You have to promote your blog and ensure it is found. Publish to your main social networks and invite comments and feedback
• Respond to comments – Comments are the gold of blogging and so actively invite comments and always respond promptly to them
• Track your performance – With each blog post you move one step closer to achieving your goals. Track your metrics and review regularly
• Rinse and repeat – Improve, improve, improve. Some blog posts will do well whilst others may not achieve the results you had hoped for. Learn what works and what doesn’t
• Learn from your spikes and dips and continually refine your editorial calendar to improve titles, content and how you reach and attract your audience. Importantly make sure you are turning your blog into tangible business results
• Don’t forget to enjoy it and be creative – This may seem obvious but have fun, enjoy it and if you are passionate about helping people and equally enthusiastic about your business your blog will do well. Experiment by adding in different media and help to make your business human. Your customers will appreciate being part of your tribe.