Ever read an interesting magazine article you just have to show your friend? Informative, funny, entertaining and helpful articles are shareable content.  That’s the kind of content you want to create for your business’ blog.

But between all of the tasks that go into running a business – payroll, making the small business blogging tipsemployee work schedule, and oh, yeah, talking to customers – it may seem hard for a small business owner to imagine having the bandwidth for blogging. How could you have time for writing when your hands are already full?

But making the time for blogging will bring you more website traffic, customer engagement and sales. Here are some tips that will help get you started.

Three Blogging Tips for Small Businesses

1. Drop the Excuses – You do have things to blog about!

Many people don’t blog because they think they have nothing to blog about. But the truth is, you DO have a lot to talk about. I actually think you have more to talk about than full-time content marketers do.

A lack of experience in blogging is a great thing. You don’t usually start a small business because you’re passionate about blogging. You start a coffee shop because you love coffee or a hair salon because you’re amazingly talented at creating great hair styles for your clients. You’ve invested time in developing an expertise in a specific subject area, and this perspective will help you come up with tons of content ideas that will attract your niche audience.

Here are a few real examples.

  • Louis Page Fencing runs a fence blog where they teach readers about the latest trends and designs for fences and shares instructional videos on how to install them.
  • Lily Glass Photography shows off a portfolio of their work on their photography blog, and make it easier than ever for their readers to share those beautiful moments with the Shareaholic plugin.

Remember: You are the expert. Whether it’s pool tips or beer recommendations, your customers want your input and there’s no better place to offer your advice than on your blog.

It is no choice of whether or not your blog any more. Your customers are online, so every business is a content marketing business.

2. Make Your Content Shareable

Your content has to appeal to both the people who come directly to your content and the search engines that will bring even more visitors to your blog. To accomplish this, keep these things in mind:

  • Come up with a great topic: People want to share information that helped them or featured them. Seattle-based Emerson Salon has a great example – they feature customers by showing off great Yelp reviews on their blog.
  • Target your keywords: You need to reach the right audience in order to attract readers who will care enough about your subject matter to pass your content along to their friends. To do this, you need to optimize your blog posts for SEO. Think about the kinds of search terms people use to find your website. Use Google’s free keyword research tool to discover more relevant keywords and variations of search phrases to target in your headline and in your blog post copy.
  • Make it easy to share: It surprises me how many blogs don’t havesocial media buttons. It’s easy to get caught up in selecting the perfect design or blog theme and then completely forget about the obvious, functional elements likes social sharing buttons or “subscribe by email” widgets. When you’re just starting out, get your content in line and focus on a simple design that lines up with your branding and includes the practical features. Then go crazy with design.

3. Be Consistent

Blogging is not the type of thing where you just want to get your toes wet – you’ve got to dive in all the way. If you start out blogging every single day and that schedule isn’t sustainable for you, you build an expectation of content among your readers. They will be disappointed when you burn out and stop blogging. Select a realistic pace that works for you.

What tips do you have for small businesses that are just getting started blogging? Let us know in the comments.

Make you blog posts reader friendly and search engine friendly. Learn how to optimize your blog posts for SEO.

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