Starting a new blog

[vangogh]

Like Harold said there's no right or wrong answer to the question of how often you should blog. Think quality over quantity. Write the best posts you can and be consistent with how often you post. Say that means one post a week. Fine. Write the best post you can each week. Then later if you feel up to it try 2 posts a week, making sure to keep the quality to the same level as when you posted once a week.

News sites generally need to post more often. It's not uncommon to see them post a half dozen times a day. Business sites generally won't need to post that often once a week or even every other week can be enough. The most important thing is quality.

[jpohl]

Assuming this is a business blog, your main goal should be in building a relationship with your customer. Just as you may welcome a customer into your store and strike up a conversation, the blog allows you to start a conversation over the Internet. As others have suggested, put your own personality into your posts. You probably won't tread a lot of new ground but then again, most of your customers and visitors probably don't spend all day comparing blog posts either...in other words, it'll be new material to a lot of your readers. It will certainly be new if you put your own experience and spin on the article.

My biggest suggestion is to NOT focusing on selling to your customers in your blog. Your main objective should be building a relationship and starting a conversation with your customer or prospective customer. You do two things with this technique. You give the customer information and build that relationship. You also are doing some branding. Whether it is personal branding or company branding, you are establishing yourself as an expert.
My advice on this is to ask the question, would you rather be sold to (aka a used car salesman chasing after you) or be given non-pressure information. Good luck on the blog and let me know if I can help in any way, no charge, just to help out.

[vangogh]

My biggest suggestion is to NOT focusing on selling to your customers in your blog.

I think that's one of the biggest mistakes new business bloggers make. They think their posts need to be sales pages, which makes their blogs uninteresting and also causes them to lost passion very quickly. The trick is to present information that's useful or entertaining on a similar subject to your products. You can mention your products and find ways to be a little more direct salesly at times, but the key is to create something people want to visit.

As an example most any service based business can blog about how to do what they do. It doesn't directly say hire me, but it shows all those interested that you're capable of doing the things you say you can do on your sales pages. You also aren't giving away free stuff to potential clients as the DIY crowd wasn't likely to contact you in the first place and potential clients will only come to understand how much work really goes into what you do.

[Paper Shredder Clay]

Yes most things are blogged about on many blogs, but that shouldn't stop you. There are many takes and different ways to accomplish the same thing. I have found solutions only by going to several blogs reading about the same topic. Just be sure your blog is your opinion or tutorial and be sure to give credit where credit is due.

[vangogh]

There are many takes and different ways to accomplish the same thing.

Very true. You can expand it beyond blogs too. I generally read more than one book when I'm interested in a topic. I've seen numerous movies that all tell essentially the same story. I've watched many many sporting events that were all fundamentally the same. There's no reason you can't blog about a topic others blog about. You just have to find something to make your blog stand out from some of the others.

[jpohl]

I have always maintained that there are very, very few new innovative things. Most things are generally improvements and combinations of old ideas. I don't mean that in a bad way, just that we shouldn't feel bad because our business is or idea is TOTALLY NEW. That's okay, whatever you blog, you are adding to the public knowledge if you add even a kernel of information.

To expand on Vangoghs discussion, I will give away SEO advice all day long. Businesses and people can do it for free. However, most wont. It happens to be something that makes more sense for companies to outsource so they can do whatever they do best. After all, a lawn care maintenance service wants to cut grass and plant bushes to make money, not make sure their h1 tags are keyword friendly. If you own a service department, you can talk about car care and how to fix things all day long but most people wont do it and those that will DIY aren't coming to you anyway....well until they screw things up and then call

again, use the blog to build a relationship and your new friends are going to demand to buy from you!

[vangogh]

Businesses and people can do it for free. However, most wont.

Exactly. Realistically we can't all do everything or be experts at everything. Our businesses need other businesses in order to survive. With every service there's a DIY crowd that wasn't going to hire you regardless of whether or not you blog advice. However those people might recommend you or buy products from you that help them DIY.

At the same time there's another crowd that has no intention of doing the work themselves. To those people your blog shows you know what you're doing. Without ever having to directly mention your services you can convince the people who are thinking of hiring someone like you to hire you.

Regardless of the "crowd" that's visiting your blog post also end up being ways for people to find your site, whether it's due to posts ranking well in search engines of other sites linking to specific posts. Your blog creates new entry points into your site and you can then direct people to the pages on your site you want them to see.

[jpohl]

Regardless of the "crowd" that's visiting your blog post also end up being ways for people to find your site, whether it's due to posts ranking well in search engines of other sites linking to specific posts. Your blog creates new entry points into your site and you can then direct people to the pages on your site you want them to see.

Kind of like the old, "I don't care what people are saying about me, just so they are talking about me"

[seolman]

Hmm...well. I'd like to help with a bit of advice but I am President of "Neglect Our Blogs Anonymous".

[Patrysha]

Hmm...well. I'd like to help with a bit of advice but I am President of "Neglect Our Blogs Anonymous".

Ummm I need a membership to your organization stat Mr. President...