Maintaining a business is not easy in today's market. Brick and mortar only stores are a thing of the past. Now, business is happening online at an alarming pace, and entrepreneurs see a great advantage to keeping up with these times in order to stay afloat. Excelling in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a sure way to remain competitive in this ever-changing market. One of the things small businesses and entrepreneurs can include as part of their SEO strategy is cultivating a blog. 

Why a Blog?

A blog allows your website to maintain relevancy and high level attractiveness to search engines. If new information is not being added to your website consistently, search bots will automatically demote your page. This means your website will not get served at the top of search results. This can be problematic because there's only so much you can say about a product or service. Having a website is great for disseminating information such as business hours, prices, product or service catalogue listings, etc. But if you want to appear high in search results, you'll have to take this a step further by adding relevant content to your website on a weekly basis. A blog is the perfect choice to resolve this issue.

What Should I Write About on My Blog?

The beauty of your blog is that it's yours and you can write about anything you want!!! There are a few guidelines I suggest be followed such as writing to keep your customer in mind; being knowledgeable about key words; and posting articles to your blog at least on a weekly basis. When looking for topics a good place to start is with your products and services. You could write a series of posts describing the product or service in detail, and how they can be used to resolve problems your customers have. Also, product tutorials are a major content generating source, as well as product reviews, case studies, and product or service features. 

You can also get creative by featuring customers, employees, and any events you are hosting or participating in - whether physical or online.  

A really strategic way to generate content is to choose topics in which your customers are already searching for.  This will give you the most bang for your buck because when people go to search for this topic, your blog post will hopefully come up - automatic exposure for you. For example, if you're a makeup artist, you can write a few blog posts about how to find the right makeup artist in your town. Sprinkle in the relevant search terms throughout your blog and don't forget to pitch your services!

Also, here's a list of super easy topics you can write about:

• Our Top 10 List of Must Haves (with your product)

• Why You Should (use our product or service

• How we're giving back to the community

• A Step Back In History: How Our Company Started

• Our Business Philosophy and Mission Statement

• What you need to know about (Local Event or Controversy that ties in to your business)

• Why We're Going To (list a local event)

• Talk about any events in which you've participated or hosted in the past.

• Product or Service Comparison

• Talk about Your Convictions as a Company ie. animal rights

How Can I Maintain a Blog And Run My Business?

Unfortunately, blogging is quite time consuming. For blogging to be an effective SEO strategy, the experts suggest posting to your blog at least once a week. Some ideas to make this less stressful and less time consuming are to create post series with a formula to follow that anyone can do, then delegate it to an employee or assistant. You could also implement feature articles that are interview style in nature where all you do is send someone a list of questions. When you get their answers, add their picture and an intro paragraph and throw it up on your blog. Another thing you can do is create videos or even audio files and have someone transcribe them and format it for an article. 

If you're writing articles yourself from scratch, it helps to set up a time every week on the same day to dedicate to blogging. This will help get you into a routine and encourage you to develop regular blogging as a habit. Unless you're writing white papers or a thesis, you should not have to spend too much time on this. Only spend 1 or 2 hours writing if you can help it. Don't make this any harder than it should be!

Put together topics and titles ahead of time. That way, when it's time to write, you'll already have topics readily available. 

Delegate It Out

You can also hire a blog writer! I understand that blogging is tedious work. I also understand that it can be hard to focus time on something that doesn't seem to produce immediate revenue for your business. However, you can be confident that a good blogging strategy will gain you more exposure and more customers in the long run. It's a long game!

Therefore, I have made blog writing a service for my clients so that they can keep their focus where it needs to be - on their customers. I would love to support you in your blogging efforts. I understand the elements of blog writing for SEO and I can even design a blogging strategy to help you get the most out of blogging. 

You can find samples of my work on The Crafty Musician Blog.  For my clients, I create articles as a ghost writer, so they can have full ownership of the articles. You can find samples of that here, here, and here.

My blog writing is affordable! I charge $25 per hour depending on the topic.  Most blog articles are written within an hour or under. If you'd like to get started with blog writing, feel free to contact me at [email protected] and let's get your business on the map!