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View Full Version : Tips and Tricks on Growing a Good Blog for Your Small Busines



AlexFord
01-07-2014, 06:57 PM
Guys, I would like to start this thread to collect valuable tips about how to grow a good small business's blog.
I will share tips every day. You are welcome to join and share your best practices as well.
Please try to post really valuable things here, so, we could help each other save time and get on-time instructions how to act and grow a blog right now.

First tip - Publish at least 1 post per day and share it on all social networks where you are.
Start a blog for your company as soon as possible. There is a fact that companies with an active blog generate 67% more leads per month! You can google it, it's true.
Once you started it - write regularly. Even if you fail on schedule, just continue to push yourself and publish.
We are not ideal and what is really helping is to pushing yourself to continue no matter what.
Your first goal - publish 1 post each day and share it on all social networks where you are.

Come back tomorrow and find another one tip!

shadojake
01-07-2014, 09:52 PM
I have a blog and still feel very 'green' at it. I do love writing but feel I need to hone my skills for blogging. I would love to read tips from those who have developed a great blog.

AlexFord
01-08-2014, 06:53 PM
Shadojake, great to see you here!

Second Tip - use pictures in your posts and make quality titles.
Pictures:
Just use it in every post you publish. Great picture is a magnet for users, so they can catch the text of your post after the picture.
One picture from google images can be really enough to get 40% more views.
Titles:
Use not more than 7 words. 7 words - it's a physic limit for human's short memory.
Make it catchy - title is a ticket to your post, same a s a picture, good title works like a magnet.

Stay tuned and I'll share more stuff on how to write cool posts.

shadojake
01-12-2014, 08:24 PM
I have read somewhere else about including photos in posts to blogs and facebook. I try to do that if at all possible with both. Sometimes I have to make a quick post/announcement without it. But I do find that a photo helps with "views".

NZBSS
01-13-2014, 09:54 AM
Also just starting out & i reckon unique engaging content is key to success. If the content is good, then the various social media sites will work, as the reader will naturally feel like sharing the content. So key tip from me is have/write good content, also look into "guest" bloggers. Nice thread, will watch closely.

VeritasCustom
02-03-2014, 11:27 PM
Would you suggest using a blog platform like blogger / wordpress.com or hosting your own?

KristineS
02-05-2014, 01:54 PM
It kind of depends. Don't use blogger for a business blog. I'll say that up front. It just doesn't look professional. I've used blogger to start blogs in the past, but moved the blogs to self hosted Wordpress as soon as I could.

Wordpress.com is a different animal. A lot of people may not even be able to tell if you host the blog yourself or if your using their service if you use wordpress.com. We have three business blogs for two businesses, and one of them is on wordpress.com as I write this. Still looks professional, and I can guarantee that most people reading the blog won't know the difference.

That said, I tend to go for self hosting. Quite frankly, if you pay for premium services on Wordpress.com, which you're probably going to want to do, you'll spend about as much as you would to pay for hosting of the blog on your own.

JohnF
02-28-2014, 08:18 PM
Wordpress and Wix are both good. Wordpress is more full-featured and generally cheaper, but Wix is easier. I'm on Wix rght now, may switch to Worpress next year.

About posting every day- I wouldn't compromise quality of posts for quantity. Following this rule can be counterproductive is you're posting even when you have nothing to say. I'd also be wary of putting too much time into the blog vs actually running your business. Pictures are good, titles are important- Tim Ferriss wrote something a long time ago about how he uses Twitter to split-test titles for his blog posts, but you need a sizable following to do that well.

LeadMaster
03-07-2014, 04:36 PM
Blog titles are important. It's ideal to not give the article away in the title but rather to have the reader question what you will be sharing. For example "Sony Vegas is great for video editing" vs "Edit your video efficiently with this program" - what title will have more draw?

on_my_own
04-25-2014, 07:25 AM
Do you mostly use pictures, videos, articles etc from other websites often when posting a blog?

Thompson92
05-21-2014, 11:05 AM
Pointing out the obvious here but blog titles are key - they're what attracts your reader to your post in the first place. In addition to a catchy title, good image choices are really important; they can break up your large chunks of text and give your reader a bit of visual stimulation - there's nothing more off putting then opening an article and all you see are huge chunks of text. In a matter of seconds your reader's attention span will have waned and the window closed. It's also important when creating a blog to make your content as engaging, informative and relevant as possible - the reader needs to feel like they are getting something out of, so including tips and tricks is a great way of keeping your reader entertained. The more entertained they are, the more inclined they'll be sharing your content on social media.

KristineS
05-21-2014, 12:16 PM
Good titles definitely help, as do good images. Studies have shown, however, that some of the most effective blog titles are ones that have a number in them "5 Useful Tips, Six Things, Four Examples" etc. People tend to like tips and lists.

PixelRocket
06-20-2014, 11:05 PM
1. Use a good keyword tool like what Hubspot offers
2. Use wordpress plugins from Yoast for your blog to hit the keyword points right.
3. Make sure it's something you're passionate about or your blog posts will be boring!
4. Use Hoot Suite to post to all your social networks in a single click!

appointmentCare
06-22-2014, 01:10 PM
Blogs are one of the best ways to bring your target audience to your site is via inbound marketing. Creating compelling and useful content on your blog, designed to provide value to your target audience can go a long way to increase traffic and grow your business. While writing blogs a key tip is to use SEO techniques - right tags, description, use of SEO plugins and use social media outreach strategies to amplify your blog articles to your target audience. This is not a magic pill which will start bringing growth from day one, but when done religiously over a period of time, you will see definite value coming out such exercises.

edthomason
07-05-2014, 10:42 AM
i started one that is for the law of attraction, it's totally unrelated to my business but since i love the subject i have unlimited info to write about.

BasicBrix
06-17-2015, 09:42 AM
I just started a blog for my company with the intend to share useful tips or information with others. Of course, it is for SEO purpose too.

veritasvisions
09-18-2015, 01:19 AM
I would say infographics are a very valuable and very under untilized piece of content. People register pictures better then they register content.

99social
10-18-2015, 12:05 PM
Infographics, pictures or attractive graphics are a must for generating more traffic or views for your posts. Having a good title does wonders, as well. Social media can certainly be huge in generating traffic and sharing your content to a much wider audience. Share your article on related pages or in groups where you believe your target audience would spend their time. If you're putting out high-quality content that is valuable to them, they are likely to click and follow back to your site and possibly share with their friends/followers.

Harold Mansfield
10-19-2015, 10:47 AM
Just wanted to chime in on the titles thing. Catchy titles work on social media. Descriptive titles work in search. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket looking for the quick social media hits, and ignore what you may attract in search days, weeks or months later.

I argue that you can do both, but as for your on site SEO, search is the more important target. Catchy social media titles expire almost as fast as you post them.
Search can serve you forever. It's not easy, and it's not instant gratification, but over time a well written article with a good search optimized title and description can give you far more traffic than that social media link bait that people forget 5 minutes after they see it because they've moved on to the next one.

carloborja
10-20-2015, 09:11 AM
Harold was on point.

Catchy titles expire fast. But, search can serve you forever.

Since we're on the topic of titles, this blog post (http://biz30.timedoctor.com/steps-to-creating-a-blog-post-without-writing-a-word/) on outsourcing content creation also has some good tips on headlines and topics for posts.

If you don't have time to go through the whole guide, these tools are recommended:
1. Hubspot's Topic Analyzer
2. CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer
3. BuzzSumo