A business blog is a marketing tool that every company should have , as it allows you to position your brand in search engines , increase traffic to your website, establish links of trust and loyalty with your followers and get more customers .
But this is not achieved alone, but with a good content marketing strategy that allows you to capture the attention of the audience. Therefore, all content must be adapted to the type of audience we want to reach.
Here are some tips and tools to help you create a good business blog for your business. We hope that these tips based on our own experience will help you and allow you to achieve your goals.
1.- Tips for creating a business blog
1.1.- Define the audience you want to reach
The first thing you should take into account is the type of audience you want to reach , this will depend on: age, sex, profession, lifestyle, needs, etc. The more objective you are, the better the content and the results. You also have to be clear about what type of business you have and if it is an ecommerce (Prestashop, Magento, Shopify , etc.) or is it more of an offline type.
1.2.- Look for a good name
In case you do not have a website yet, it is important that you think of a name that fully represents your product and/or service . Depending on the terrain you want to cover, you should consider the extension. If, for example, you want to reach more borders, choose the “ .com” extension.
1.3.- Choose the best design
Your blog design should have an attractive interface , but at the same time simple, since many menus and options will only make the user lose interest in exploring more. Also make sure that the blog has a responsive design that adapts perfectly to smartphones, remember that now its use dominates computers. In ThemForest you can find a lot of templates to create a professional wordpress.
1.4.- Plan the content to publish
The publication of your content should not be random , but should be governed by dates and times. This will help the public keep track of everything you post and create a kind of habit when reading your content.
Make sure your content is not to sell , but to make an emotional connection with followers .
1.5.- Connect the blog to social networks
Your blog posts are useless if no one knows they exist . So complement them with links to different social networks, in this way your content can be shared several times. Likewise, you must create accounts on social networks with a link to your business blog .
1.6.- Measure everything
The number of visitors , the viewing time on the blog, the number of subscribers, and the traffic on your social networks will help you evaluate which content your followers like the most and the least. Only then can you work on improving your publications .
1.7.- Designate a working group for the blog
Although it seems that a blog only consists of making publications, it is not. It requires a lot of time and a lot of knowledge : SEO positioning , content marketing , writing, editing, etc. All this will help you increase the visibility of your blog on the Internet .
2.- Some useful tools to promote a business blog
Here are some tools to help you boost your blog:
- Blogsterapp:It is a platform that allows you to automate your content marketing, since it allows you to relaunch old content from your blog, curate content from other interesting blogs and of course have statistics on how your social networks behave. More info here .
- Duplicate post: is a WordPressplugin that allows you to clone content you already have on your blog in order to prevent you from starting a post from scratch . It is ideal for creating templates.
- Lucky Orange:is a tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of the blog , converse with your visitors through a chat and see through heat maps where the public interacts best.
- Pixabay: Itis difficult that in the beginning of your business blog you have your own photographer. However, there are both paid image banks and free domain pages. Pixabay has a plugin that allows you to search for optimized images from the same article.
- Social Crawlytics: Itis one of the best tools used today that shows detailed data about the posts that are shared the most by the competition , as well as the data of the blog itself.
- Click to tweet:with this tool you can create the message that you want others to share through a personalized link. In addition, you can track the interaction you have on your link. A very interesting alternative is vgs Toolbox from our friend Victor Campuzano, which works great, is free and includes more interesting features.
- MailChimp: is an email marketing service provider that allows you to send attractive emails, connect them with your online store, advertise and solidify your brand.
- Canva: is a program with which you have the opportunity to create designs for your website, blog and printed material . You can design images, add text to them, and filters with a very professional touch.
- Google Adsense: is a tool that allows you to monetize your blog through relevant ads .
- Google Analytics: It is a very popular tool used to track how many people visit your blog , and also generates reports to help you improve your content .
- Google G Suite: What used to be called Google Apps and that allows you to have an email with your domain, more storage in Drive and a large number of functionalities. If you like the Gmail mail manager and want to professionalize your image, Google G Suite is a very good option.
3.- Examples of successful company blogs
3.1.- Starbucks, as an example of a successful business blog
Who has not heard of Starbucks, the famous multinational coffee retailer?
The Starbucks blog is an example of simplicity and interactivity . It is characterized by its neutral colors such as white and light gray. Plus, their menus go straight to the point. It features social media buttons at the top right, and eye-catching images representing the articles.
As for its content, it does not sell its products directly, but connects emotionally with its consumers , which manages to establish stronger links between both parties. Starbucks focuses on family values and cultural diversity. It is definitely an example to follow of a successful business blog.
3.2.- Caterpillar for sustainability
Caterpillar is the world’s largest manufacturer of construction machinery, gas turbines, diesel engines and mining equipment. Surely, the first thing that comes to your mind is that your blog can be something heavy to look at, but it is quite the opposite.
It uses the white color and some lines of the characteristic yellow of its brand. It has a fairly simple interface , and social media buttons at the bottom left.
His articles are, for the most part, about sustainable energy and the care of natural resources such as water. It is, in short, a blog that makes its readers aware and that in turn allows the community to comment on its content .
3.3.- Disney, the blog that touches our inner child
As soon as we hear the word Disney , incredible memories of our childhood come to mind. His blog is really simple , but very funny because of the colors he uses along with white and light gray.
All content revolves around movies and amusement parks. The titles are so attractive that you could spend hours reading each post , it also has social media buttons of a very attractive size in two places: upper right and lower left.
This blog is a faithful and exact representation of what Disney is. Its audience is not only children and adolescents, but also all those adults who grew up with the company. Definitely, Disney has been able to use this great sense of belonging and loyalty to get much more traffic to the content of its blog .
There is a lot to be learned from these blogs, so take your time to explore them and take note of the highlights that you can apply to your own business blog .