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ben502
01-14-2011, 07:50 AM
I am looking to start a new blog on my site here in the near future. My problem at this point is, as a new startup business i have no idea what to write about that people haven't already ready several hundred times...so why would people want to come to/ keep coming back to my internet ramblings?

My guess is i am thinking way too inside the box at this point.

Thanks Yall!

Patrysha
01-14-2011, 09:31 AM
It's really a matter of putting your own personality into it. Just because people in the business might have read things a hundred times, most of your prospects will not have read a word of it. Now if it's for business, you wouldn't want them to be random internet ramblings, but thoughts and ideas that will position you as an expert in their minds...so not random but things that will be useful, interesting, entertaining or inspiring.

KristineS
01-14-2011, 09:53 AM
I've been writing a blog for one of our companies for over 3 years now. You'd be surprised what you can find to talk about. Write about your products or services. Write about your business philosophy, how you feel about customer service, or why and how your business was founded. Talk about the day to day things that happen, the customer that said nice things, the tough job that you found a solution for, how someone brought you cookies just to say thanks. Give tips to your customers, talk about the unique aspects of your particular business, and talk about why your customers should work with you.

As Patrysha said, make sure your personality is part of the mix. You may talk about things that a lot of other business blogs have discussed, but no one else has your viewpoint and personality.

ben502
01-14-2011, 11:02 AM
This is fantastic! Thank you guys.

Harold Mansfield
01-14-2011, 11:46 AM
I have started a blog directed at existing or at gaining new clients at least 3 times. The one thing I finally figured out is that my clientele, doesn't care or read much about the technical inter-workings of the internet, design, or Wordpress. They are not gurus. I had to sit back and think what all of my clients and prospects had in common, and find things to write about that they care abut on a day to day basis.

It doesn't always have to be serious and it doesn't always have to be business related. Sometimes it's just helpful tips, talking bout new advances or products or anything.
The one thing all of my clients and prospected clients have in common is that they are all in business and are all running their own website and don't take, or have time to learn about every new thing. From that there's a million things to talk about that are helpful or interesting.

vangogh
01-14-2011, 12:44 PM
Ben very few people are writing things that no one else is writing about. It's more writing about a topic from your own unique angle. A few thoughts

1. Subscribe to as many blogs in your industry as you can. See what others are writing about the topic. It'll help generate ideas and you'll get a feel for how others treat the topic. If you need some help finding blogs let me know. I'm subscribed to about 200 or so design related blogs.

2. Don't stress about how quickly your blog is growing early on. At first few people will be reading and commenting and you might feel like you're writing to no one, but yourself. Use that time to find your voice so when people are reading your blog will be that much better.

3. Be consistent. Be reasonable about how many posts you can write each week or month and stick with that. Even if all you can do is one post every other week. I now post twice a week, every Monday and Thursday. Every so often I may add a 3rd post on another day, but I make sure that every Monday and Thursday morning there's a new post.

4. Most importantly create a blog that you would want to read if it wasn't you writing. Don't write things because you think it's what you have to write. Write what genuinely interests you. Be yourself. This took me awhile to learn. Early on I wrote based more on the advice popular bloggers were offering. Their advice was good, but I was applying it to any old post idea. I wasn't very interested in my own blog which suffered as a result. I took some time away from the blog and came back writing the posts I wished others would have been writing. I don't have a degree in design and wanted to learn more. I bought books, found tutorials online, etc. Now my posts are often sharing what I'm teaching myself about how to design and develop better sites. My blog has grown about 600%-1000% since I started writing for me.

954SEO
01-14-2011, 01:13 PM
Patrysha is very right. No matter what you're writing on, putting your own personality into something has a great effect on how it is perceived. I would say that in addition to providing something worthwhile and informative, presenting it in a new manner may induce more visitors and re-visitors. We could perhaps offer specific suggestions based on what kind of blog you feel you want to write?

Also, if the content is something you are passionate about, it will be much easier for you to write and much more enjoyable for your readers. Hope this helps.

vangogh
01-16-2011, 12:47 PM
Looks like you did pretty well matching the theme to the rest of the site. For future reference you may want to let WordPress power the rest of the site as well. The same theme can be used for the look of the entire site. Pages that need to have a different format can be created via a custom page inside the theme. Ultimately this will help make the site easier to manage for you.

Nothing you have to rush out and do tomorrow of course, but something to look into. If you click through to my site the whole thing is powered by WordPress. Every page and post is using the same theme. For the most part pages and posts look the same. They have the same general layout. If you look a little closer you'll see I'm offering different things on some of those pages, for example what's in the sidebar. I barely scratched the surface too of what can be done as my site was one of the first times attempting this.

Just something to keep in mind in the future.

kitty
01-17-2011, 11:56 AM
how often should you post new content to your blog? i have seen some blogs that are updated daily and they dont have very many views or hits on them but yet other blogs that where posted in 2009 with thousands of hits?

Harold Mansfield
01-17-2011, 04:50 PM
how often should you post new content to your blog? i have seen some blogs that are updated daily and they dont have very many views or hits on them but yet other blogs that where posted in 2009 with thousands of hits?

There is no right or wrong answer. You update as much as you need to, to stay current with what ever your niche or platform is. Newspapers print everyday because there world and local news everyday (yet the entertainment section is only on Friday), yet magazines only print once a week or once a month because that's all that their unique position of niche warrants.

vangogh
01-17-2011, 10:08 PM
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
03-02-2011, 11:53 PM
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
03-03-2011, 10:44 AM
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
03-03-2011, 11:04 AM
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
03-03-2011, 11:36 AM
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
03-03-2011, 08:49 PM
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
03-04-2011, 11:09 AM
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
03-04-2011, 11:41 AM
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
03-04-2011, 12:06 PM
Hmm...well. I'd like to help with a bit of advice but I am President of "Neglect Our Blogs Anonymous".

Patrysha
03-04-2011, 03:32 PM
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...

vangogh
03-04-2011, 04:56 PM
I used to need membership in the club too.

What you have to do is decide what you can realistically commit to your blog as far as how much content you can produce and then honor that commitment. A year or so ago I told myself I would publish one post a week. I picked a day to publish and made sure that every week on that day there was a new post. After awhile that one post became part of my usual rhythm and it wasn't so hard to meet the once a week publishing schedule. Then I added a second post a week and again I make sure to always publish a post on the same two days each week.

I think the consistency is more important than quantity and naturally you should set the consistency based producing quality.

seolman
03-04-2011, 05:00 PM
That's exactly what I did...and at the turn of the century I'll be adding my next post! :)

vangogh
03-04-2011, 05:03 PM
Once a century is a start. :)

vikrantsharma1
03-05-2011, 04:02 AM
i have no idea what to write about that people haven't already ready several hundred times...

You don't have to be conceptually original or out of this world. People will come to your blog for your opinion rather than general knowledge. Be original in your thoughts.