Blogging for Business: 10 Tips to Build a Powerful Business Blog

Your business blog should be the hub of a strong social media and content marketing strategy. As such, it’s vital that you get it right.

Unless you know how to strategically plug a blog into the big picture of your overall marketing plan, it could suck an incredible amount of time and energy without directly benefiting your profits or brand.

Here are 10 tips to ensure blogging for business yields traffic and conversions instead of draining your time and resources.

[tweet_box design=”box_04″]Boost results from your business blog. 10 tips for better results.[/tweet_box]

10 tips for a powerful business blog

1. Know your target audience. Before you can know what to write about, you need to know who you want to read it. Who’s your ideal customer? What do they do? What do they care about? What information would help them succeed? Write every article for the sake of this prospect.

2. Determine your goals up front. Most businesses start a blog with the hope of generating ROC (return on connections), positive word of mouth, credibility, brand growth, instant feedback, or thought leadership. What do you want your blog to do? How will you measure success? But don’t stop there. You also need to consider how many posts you will write each day, week or month. Who will write them? And who will approve and respond to comments?

3. Integrate your blog with the rest of your marketing. A blog isn’t a stand-alone platform. Ideally, it’s one cog in a well-integrated marketing plan. For most businesses, the website is the hub of all marketing efforts. Email marketing may push prospects to the website. Direct response may make direct sales. Content marketing may be used to build credibility and brand presence. And a blog could create a platform for your prospects to engage with you and share their thoughts.

4. Inform, educate or entertain your target audience. Or all three. A business blog is a great way to give your prospects the information they need to move them through the sales funnel.

5. Write about subjects your target audience is interested in. Too many blogs are followed by competitors rather than prospects. If you want your prospect to read your blog, write about the topics she’s most interested in. That’s why it’s critical that you know your prospect. Address her greatest needs. Deliver valuable, relevant information, and you’ll get a following.

6. Focus on delivering value, not making a sale. Don’t try to make sales. Join your prospect’s conversations and invite her to join yours. Your business blog should be all about your prospect, not her money.

7. Keep it “you” oriented. That’s Marketing 101. It’s also the first commandment of social media. Deliver value. Focus on enriching your prospect’s life and you’ll get a stronger following.

8. Optimize your posts for search engines. Since blogging is part of your online presence, it should help your search engine ranking as well. But even more than that, you’d like your prospect list to grow. If you rank well in the search engines, newcomers to your product offering will be able to find you. So as you write, give some thought to your keywords.

9. Allow your personality to show through. There’s a fine balance here. You want to be personal, but not too personal. Fortunately, you can write a professional blog while still showcasing your organization’s personality. And it’s a great way to engage your ideal prospect.

10. Help your prospects know, like and trust you. The bottom line of any marketing platform is this: your prospects want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Be consistent. Deliver value. Care about your prospects, and your business blog will earn its keep.

How does your business blog stack up?

As with every marketing platform, it’s important that you evaluate your blog on a regular basis. These ten points are a great starting point. But there are lots of other considerations as well.

What works for your blog? How have you integrated it into your marketing plan?