Blogging for businesses

So my last post was abut content marketing, and one of the main avenues for that is by blogging.

But blogging can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it is a great way to keep content fresh and encourage frequent visits from the search engine bots. On the other hand, it can be difficult to find the time and the topics to write about on a consistent schedule. (I’m as guilty of this as anyone – I am trying hard to be more consistent but it is sometimes impossible to find the time to write a good post.)

I can’t tell you that I know everything there is to know about business blogging, but here are a few tips, which should help to make your business blogging better:

• Consider what you want your blog to do. Do you want better results from the search engines? Do you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field? Do you want to share knowledge about a specific topic? All of the above?
• Do your research. find some other blogs that are successful and study them. Do you see anything there that you can apply to your own blog?
• Use your keywords. Don’t just rely on the longtail keywords in your posts – use your keywords to set up your categories. This not only helps the visitors to your site to find relevant content, but will improve your SEO.
• Always create alternate text for your images. This is an important part of SEO, since the search spiders cannot see images and rely on reading the alternate text. Another reason to use the alternate text is to improve the accessibility of the site. It makes it much easier for any visitors to your site who may be using a screen reader.
• Plan your posts. Create an editorial calendar, which will help you to co-ordinate your timing and your topics. You will be able to incorporate some good longtail keywords for the search engines if you plan ahead.

I’ll have more on editorial calendars in my next post, so check back in a week or so.