What you Need to Start a Business Blog

A lot of businesses are at risk of being obsolete. One cause of this is their lack of presence online.

Now, this may seem a threat at first. But if we were to view this statement in a whole different light, we may notice that it is actually a call for us to make sure our businesses stay relevant in times where the internet is widely used.

One thing we notice in most successful businesses is that they make sure they dominate online content. Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Alibaba have marked their footprints in the roster of successful companies. The secret behind that may lie in how they were able to develop their presence and their brand name online.

By doing so, they have managed to have people talk about them online, keeping their names relevantly fresh even in the simplest of conversations.

What we have to understand about the internet is that it is now a major game-changer in terms of regulating fora, discussions, and other means for communicating – this is where you want to be.

Therefore, developing a Business Blog will be one of the best decisions you will ever make to bolster your business. Eventually, it will help you to get people talking about your business more. This will also help you widen your reach even further to other potential customers.

But first things first. What will you need to start a business blog?

The Gift of WordPress

WordPress is a good starter platform for setting up your Business Blog (at least, in its beginning parts). It has two options: the free domain and the paid domain.

A Free WordPress domain would look like this: www.yourwebsitename.wordpress.com

WordPress.com is best used if you are currently at the point where you have just begun introducing your company online. It helps to have a quick start-up for your business blog to get your business descriptions online as early as possible: what your business is about, what services you provide and offer, and other details. However, using WordPress’ free domain will have limits. For one thing, you will not be able to sell directly from the website.

Other platforms include Weebly, Drupal, and Joomla. Just like WordPress, they also provide free services for establishing your very own website to host your business blog.

In order to make an upgrade and enable monetization for your blog (aka, enabling your website for online sales), you will have to invest in a paid domain via an annual subscription.

A paid domain will look like this: www.yourwebsitename.org

WordPress.org is the best upgrade you will make for your business blog because, for one thing, you are now hosting your very own website compared to when you were using WordPress.com. Self-hosting your website also enables you to engage in online sales and open up your website for affiliate marketers and advertising companies.

Other paid web hosting platforms include NameCheap, 1&1, and GoDaddy. Explore their paid hosting programs to suit whatever needs you may have in terms of maintaining your website 24/7.

Now, let’s go to designing your website.

Choosing a Website Theme

WordPress provides its own set of themes for free, although some of them will require paid domain subscriptions before availing. WordPress Theme Directory and Theme Forest will aid you in choosing the right design that best represents your business blog.

However, you will need to pay attention to the following:

• Does it fit well with my chosen audience?
• Does the design represent the nature of my business?
• Is the theme accessible to various devices (e.g., mobile phones, personal computers, laptops, tablets)?
• Does the theme come with a public forum or any form of customer support to address various issues I might encounter?
• Does the theme provide me with a comprehensive roster of options for customization purposes?

Developing Your Content

Now that you have a well-designed website for your business blog, it is now time for you to plan and develop content.

As the saying goes, the best way to make a sale is to love your product. Building on that premise, you need to be able to translate your own interests into something that will pique the interest of your potential customers. Providing a narrative for all the applications of the product you are trying to sell is basically what a business blog is all about: talking about your products and services.

Therefore it is essential to find your voice: you do not necessarily have to be a good writer to make good content. What is important is how you manage to stay genuine while writing.

Brainstorming your topics is a good approach for planning your content as well as scheduling their releases. You can write about the benefits of your product, or have someone review them and publish it directly onto your business blog. In that way, you will be able to widen your influence online and establish new connections along the way. The more people who buy from your online store, the more people would want to write about your products. The more people who wish to write about your products,  the more people would get attracted to buying it.

In the long run, you would eventually develop a community of loyal customers continuously talking about your product and encouraging other people to buy from you. At that point, you are already having your customers help you promote your business online.

Discoverability and Networks

Now comes the technical part.

To ensure that your content can be seen by more people online, you will have to pay attention to optimizing your website to make it more searchable online. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) pays close attention to words you are using in your content. For example, if you are selling coffee beans, what other words can be tied up to that? And what would people most probably have to type in on their Google search bars to find you? Researching keywords is part of optimizing your website to rise in the ranks of Google search results.

Doing keyword research and integrating them in your title, some parts of the body, and the conclusion will prove essential (and by far the most laborious task you might do). You have the option to hire SEO experts and content writers to work on your content, or you could enroll yourself in SEO courses.

A good SEO strategy will increase the likeliness of your business blog to appear more often in Google searches. By doing so, you can meet people you would want to do partnerships with to grow and expand your business.