How to start a blog

Decide on its purpose and theme 

 Spend time at the very beginning planning the purpose and theme of your blog. Start with your audience. What are their interests, priorities, concerns, values? What sort of content would they enjoy reading or engage with, on your website? What would they find most useful?  

While you want to prioritise your customers’ needs, you also need it to make sense coming from your business. For example, there’s no point starting a blog about ways to save money, if you’re a high end luxury retailer. 

Take a look at your competition. Do they have a blog? What sort of content / themes are they addressing? Is there a unique angle that’s not yet covered by your competitors? Out of 1.9 billion websites, more than 600 million are blogs, so make sure you think about a unique selling point, as it will not only help your blog stand out and attract readers, but it will help steer your marketing activity for it.

What type of content will you create?

It seems strange to plan your first batch of blog posts before you’ve even set up your blog platform, but bear with us…

If you plan to publish richer content such as video, interactive graphics, etc (now or in the future), you need to make sure that you opt for a blog platform that can cater for these content types. For example, some platforms are considered more user-friendly than others when it comes to uploading content that goes beyond text and an image. This is your opportunity to future-proof the foundations of your blog as much as you can, before you even go live!

Start planning your posts

Lack of time and ideas are the most frequently cited reasons by many small businesses for not having a blog. (Especially if you’ve just started out and are currently a team of one-!) However, with a bit of productive forward-planning and smart use of available tools and resources, it might not be the unmanageable mountain you think it is.

Let’s start with one of the biggest no-nos. Too many business blogs discuss services and products, which immediately turns off readers. Save this language for your main product/service pages. Instead, focus on adding value to your readers through education and/or entertaining content.

Next, use data insights to give your posts the best chance of engaging readers and driving traffic to your website.

Quality, frequency, consistency

Keep the below in mind when planning your blog. If you’re currently unable to commit to these three key elements, now might not be the right time to start a business blog. Out-of-date content on a company’s website can do more harm than good – it tells customers you haven’t got your eye on the ball, which can harm your brand’s reputation.

Quality: Ensure your posts are well informed and follow a strict editing process. If misinformation occurs or typos are spotted, you’ll lose trust from your readers and they’ll go elsewhere.

Frequency: Try and publish 5-6 posts a month if you can. Remember, you don’t have to write lengthy articles – spend more time on making sure the topic hits a chord.

Consistency: Push blog posts live at the same time every week; this shows your organisational skills and helps build consistency on social media feeds and newsletters.

Include a call to action (CTA)

Have one clear call to action so your reader doesn’t leave your website as soon as they’ve finished reading your blog post. Use the opportunity to push the reader to another relevant blog post, or be bold and suggest they sign up to your email marketing list to be informed of new blog posts as soon as they’re published.

If you can, try and match your CTA to what you’re talking about in your post e.g. at the end of your post, you could include: ‘Did you know that [business name] addresses just this problem with [product/service]? If you’d like to arrange an online demonstration, please book an appointment here].

Pick a platform

When choosing a blogging platform, you want to make sure:

• It’s simple to use. Draft a post, add an image/video, publish it and you’re done!
• It can be customised. You want your blog to reflect your brand guidelines such as colour/s, font/s etc. Try to opt for a customisable design that isn’t like your competitors – this is your opportunity to stand out.
• It offers user-friendly analytics. Your blog’s data insights will tell you how customers are responding to your content. How many have read your blog post/s? Are they reading them, or leaving straight away? Which marketing activities are driving the most quality traffic to your blog? Are they clicking on your calls to actions? The more you know, the more you can adjust your activity to encourage the best results.

Secure a domain and set up hosting

Historically, figuring out how to set up a domain name and organise web hosting – especially when you haven’t done so before – can be painful and time consuming.

However, this process has been simplified in recent times. Not only have sites like GoDaddy and IONOS (previously 1&1) become more user-friendly, offering support teams to help with questions along the way, but platforms such as SquareSpace go as far as handling this process for you. You can register custom domains through its platform, and even receive a free custom domain name for the first year of an annual website plan.

Getting your blog on your website

If you have an existing website, a masked subdomain is a way to add a blog to your website by creating a subdomain (e.g. www.businessname.co.uk/blog), and linking it to your blog. Another option is to import your blog’s exported posts into a new subfolder on your website.

Our best recommendation is to speak to your website developer or if you don’t have one, a professional that specialises in this area. If you’re not experienced in this area, trying to figure it out as you go might cause even more problems. (There’s no panic quite like when your website goes down!).

Market your blog

“If you build it, they will come” – not quite true. Without smart SEO or a big following, this will be almost impossible. It’s time to put on your marketing hat and promote your latest blog posts across your social media channels, your monthly newsletters, your email signature… you get the drift!

Also – don’t forget to market the blog itself. Many customers might not know it’s there! Make sure to flag its existence and its purpose.

Don’t forget to research in-built marketing capabilities when looking at your platform options. For example, GoDaddy offers tools including a digital marketing suite to help you connect with your customers online. SquareSpace includes some powerful marketing and analytics tools, while Wix’s blog offers a wealth of marketing insight on how to promote your website through social media and SEO.

The great outsource

Aware of the benefits of a blog, but simply don’t have the time to commit to it right now? If you’re not in a position to hire a team yet, you can outsource your blog posts to freelance writers or agencies. Be mindful though – a lot of analysis goes behind blog titles, such as keyword research and topic development. You might want to work with a writer or agency that also specialises in SEO to ensure ultimate optimisation of your blog content. Make sure those you work with know what they’re doing, and always ask to see examples of their work before committing. Always do your homework when you’re looking to outsource.

Track, review, adjust, repeat

Just because a plan’s in place, doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. Use the analytics data at your fingertips to track the success of your blog. Are your blog posts driving traffic to your website? Are readers engaging with your posts? Are they going on to complete key goals on your website such as booking a demo, purchasing a product?

What about your social media analytics? Which blog posts are encouraging the best social engagement? Again, if this isn’t your speciality and/or you’re short on time, could you outsource to a professional? Or if the budget is tight, is there a friend or family member who’s knowledgeable in this area that would be willing to share their expertise with you?

On a final note

Make sure to enjoy the process! Many business owners use their blog as an informal extension of their business website to discuss their passion and offer up their expertise. No matter what industry you’re in, make sure to focus on topics where you have unique insights to share. Always ask yourself, what can my company add to the conversation? Be original and always focus on what your audience will value. What would they share online with their network? What answers are they searching for? Keep asking these questions and tracking your content results, as customer interests and priorities can shift over time.

Have you taken a look at the Informi blog, which offers additional content designed to support small businesses?