- Improve traffic to your website with search engine optimization (SEO).
- Position you and your business as experts in your field.
- Expand your reach to a global audience.
- Amplify awareness and recognition of your brand image.
While most will agree that blogging for business sets your company up for success, it can be a time-consuming process.
If you don’t struggle with writer’s block, you may labor to discover what it is that your target audience is interested in? In this article, we discuss ten blogging ideas guaranteed to resonate with the most readers.
1. Ask Your Target Audience What’s Important To Them
If you don’t know what your target audience would be interested in reading about, ask! Create posts on your social media channels encouraging your audience to suggest ideas for blog articles they would like to read from you. This helps you generate a list of blog post topics to write about and increases engagement on your social media. Additionally, it shows your audience you care about what they want and that you’re listening. You may be surprised with how many ideas you can come up with from one simple post!
If your requests on social media don’t yield results, look for other places to consult your customers. If you have a physical store, ask people when they come in to shop. If you have an e-newsletter, ask them to respond to that. You could even come up with a contest where they win a prize for coming up with the next blog post topic!
2. Blog About What You Know
When you write about something you know and enjoy, blogging for business comes much more easily.
It’s no secret that it’s easier to write about something that is familiar to you. The words come more naturally, and you don’t have to look up as much information. So, when blogging for business, start with what you know. Tell the story of how your organization came to be, explain a concept or topic to your consumers or try to teach your audience with information from within your industry. Make sure to avoid jargon as much as possible or explain concepts in simple, concise language.
Whatever direction you take, ensure you are an expert in whatever you’re blogging about – or that you consult reputable resources to guide and inform you. Readers (especially those who are familiar with your chosen topic) will be able to tell if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
3. Create A Step-By-Step Guide
One of the best things you can do when blogging for business is create a step-by-step guide. These types of posts are helpful for your audience and are approachable. Not everyone has time to sit and read heavy, long articles, but when they are split into manageable chunks and tips, readers can opt in without sacrificing too much.
Think about something you can explain in the realm of your business or industry and go from there! There are bound to be several topics you can come up with that your readers would be excited and interested to learn about!
4. Discuss New Information Related To Your Field
Blogging about new information related to your industry is a great strategy to present yourself as an expert in your field.
Businesses and consumers alike prefer to stay in the know about what is going on around them. If you manage your website’s updates, you need to stay current on industry best practices, breaking news, new technology – basically anything related to your business. When something new comes up, write a blog post about it!
One of the advantages to writing about new information when blogging for business is that you have the potential to be one of the first to share your insights about the topic. This gives your business a chance to present yourselves as experts and innovative thought leaders in the field, giving you an edge over your competitors. This is also a great way to enhance your SEO for topics related to your industry.
5. Reflect On Mistakes You’ve Made
Consumers like to know the brands they are loyal to are real people with real experience. What better way to show this than blogging about mistakes you’ve made and the lessons you learned from them? Being relatable and showing you’re human through your blog posts will help your audience engage with you and teach them something in the process.
Writing about your flaws or mistakes helps others avoid those same mistakes. Sometimes it’s hard to be honest, especially if the mistake was particularly egregious, but being transparent can go a very long way in engaging customers and showing people that your brand can be trusted. You may even find that this reflection causes you to learn something about your business or yourself along the way.
6. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Answer frequently asked questions when blogging for business.
Frequently asked questions are a perfect go-to resource for blog articles, and they are incredibly helpful for your audience. Many businesses have FAQ pages on their website, but there isn’t often a lot of space to fully explain the answer. A great idea for blogging for business is to take some of these FAQs and explain your answers in more detail.
You may find that as you write about frequently asked questions, your readers will submit their own follow-up questions. This offers the dual benefits of creating engagement on your posts and helping you identify topics to write about in the future.
7. Talk About The Future Of Your Industry
When blogging for business it’s helpful to look ahead. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What changes do you see coming for your industry?
- What do you hope will change about it in the future?
- How will new technologies like generative media affect your business?
This information is helpful to your audience, and it shows them you’re as up to date in your field as possible. Remember, in this type of blog post it isn’t necessary for the idea to be something achievable right now. The idea is to dream about what your industry could become in the future.
Webinars, in-person workshops and new articles from reputable sources are helpful ways to discover where your industry expects to find itself in the future. If you commit to being a life-long learner in some form, you’ll be able to stay on top of what is happing in your field.
8. Organize Link Roundups
One thing many organizations do when blogging for business is create roundups of current news and articles relevant to their field. This type of blog post is easy to write as it requires less content creation for you, but it does necessitate some research into which articles you want to share.
One way to help with this is to create Google Alerts for certain topics. Setting alerts allows you to be notified by email when a relevant article or link matches your alert terms. Keep a spreadsheet or folder to collect this information so that every couple of weeks you can write a blog post featuring several of the articles and a small write up about each one.
9. Promote A Local Business
Blogging about local businesses widens your audience and shows that you care.
Sometimes when blogging for business it’s a good idea to stray away from talking solely about your own industry topics and instead promote a local business near you. Writing about local businesses not necessarily related to your own field has several advantages. Here are a few:
- It shows your readers that you’re invested in the community and want to help it succeed.
- It shows the businesses you feature that you’re looking out for them and care about their success as well.
- It can increase your exposure.
When businesses know you’ve written about their brand, they are likely to return the favor and share your link on their social media or on their own business blog. In other words, their audience has now become your audience.
10. Share Promotional Content
Here at Three Girls Media, we encourage you to be mindful about the amount of promotional content you share and to not focus on only selling to your customers. In fact, we typically subscribe to the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your content should be nonpromotional and only 20% promotional.
However, it is appropriate from time to time to write blog articles about the services and special offers your company may have.
Keep a healthy balance. It might be tempting to sell yourself as much as you can, but it can be annoying to consumers if they feel like you’re only trying to market to them. It’s hard to create brand loyalty and consumer trust if they feel like all you want out of the members of your audience is their money.
Need Help Blogging For Your Business?
Blogging for business can have a very positive effect on your brand. It establishes your company as a leader in your field, increases your brand’s visibility and potentially gives yourself a global audience. While it does take time and effort, it is something that is well worth it in the long run.
If you’re still struggling to come up with content for your business blog, Three Girls Media can help. Contact us today for a complimentary 30-minute consultation with our CEO Erika Taylor Montgomery to see what our team of experienced writers can do for you and your business!
Special Offer:
Sign up for a complimentary consultation during January and receive an Email Marketing Guide valued at $475! We offer a 30-minute phone consultation with our CEO and can answer your questions and discuss your specific marketing needs – no strings attached. Call 360-955-1410 or contact us today to arrange your consultation!