Maggie Patterson is the chief marketing officer at Scoop Industries. She works with female entrepreneurs and online businesses helping them grow their business. She’s passionate about women taking control of their economic reality. Maggie believes blogging is a great place for business owners to market themselves and support their business goals.
Why should a business owner have a blog?
Business owners need a blog to speak to the people who want to do business with them. A business blog is a business owner’s opportunity to speak to the pain points of their customers.
Do you have to blog every day?
You can blog every day, but writing and posting a blog post is about 70% of the puzzle – the other part is getting it seen and shared. You want your great content to be read (and not just about your mom), so you need to not only publish it, but also promote it!
What’s a common business blog mistake?
A common mistake business owners make is starting to blog way too late in the process. If you’re going to blog there should be a strategy behind it that is supporting your business goals. So, if you have a goal to grow your product revenue in your shop by 10%, then your blog should support that goal with relevant content.
If you aimlessly write blog posts, chances are you will end up frustrated and unsure of whom you are talking to. Get clear on your goals and your audience before you start writing content for your website - this betters your chances of creating content that resonates with readers.
What are the steps to starting a business blog?
Before getting into content, you:
1) Know who you are writing for! Who are your target audience? Who is your ideal client? Find out what they are motivated by, what is going on and what are they thinking about? You can find this out by talking to current clients and finding out more about them.
2) Plan to be consistent with your content. You have a better chance of being memorable if you have a steady set of values that shines through your blog posts. Why are people seeking out the information they are? Remember what you’re selling and write about that and explain to your reader how you can help them.
You can even start with the questions your clients commonly have for you or the obstacles you regularly face in your business. This also makes sure your content has longevity and continually sharable.
3) Establish your goal. Before you start writing ask yourself: why are you blogging? What are your goals for your blog and your business? And then keep this mind when producing content for your website.
What is a common blogging roadblock for business owners?
Business owners worry they don’t have anything worthy to say. They question their authority on subjects, but you know more than you think you know. Have confidence!
Don’t think of your blog as just a written form. Think of it visually as well, use headings, subheadings and engaging signature images. These extra touches will make your blog post stand out that much more.
Remember that people need text to be broken up and easy to skim. The more condensed text you have, the less likely people are to read it.
Most people are not writers, but unless you are in a super technical field or super professional you do not need to have highbrow writing. While you should always proof read and spell check, feel free to use simple language. People do no have time to look up word definitions.
You don’t have to find your voice – you just have to turn it on!
You can also outsource your writing or editing – even if it is just a second set of eyes to read what you have written to avoid mistakes (but they happen – no one is perfect!).