Writing content for a business blog helps to support a website and can influence customers at the buying stage.

Helpful content helps a website to rank well on search engines for many different search terms. Google loves content.

Why blog for business? >

Producing interesting, quality content for a blog then sharing it across social media networks is an essential part of online marketing.

If you are not using a blog your business may as well not exist online.

Content for a business blog

To stay in Google’s positive ranking system write posts that are over 500 words.

Articles at 2000 words get ranked highly, as long as they are in depth and informative.

Produce content that matters

Consumers love open, honest communication and do not buy with hard sell tactics.

Google is looking for content that answers questions, and has been produced with care.

Think what can I do for my customers? Not how can I sell to my customers.

I find that the more I write, the more ideas I come up with. I write them down to use in my next blog post.

Brainstorm for content

I return to pen and paper when brainstorming. Use a mind map to highlight topics related to your business and its customers.

Ask your employees, spouses and children to get involved. The best ideas come from amazing places.

I’ve produced some brainstorming blog post ideas

Answer the questions of your own clients

Producing content for your small business blogIf one of my clients asks me a question I answer it on my blog.

I send the link to the client.

When I am asked the same question I send them to the blog post.

My post will then be found on Google when someone searches for an answer.

That is great customer service AND production of content.

Look back at your emails to discover old threads.

Reading industry news

To keep up to date in our fields we all read market sector articles and sign up to industry newsletters.

Reading helps us to understand our own audiences values and in turn can help to produce content for our own blogs.

As you read, jot down notes, headings and ideas for your next post.

Then you can share exactly what your audience wants to learn about.

TIP: If your content is triggered by a post written by someone else in the industry, mention them. That way you build connections in the industry. They may be generous enough to share your content, or you could end up exchanging business down the line.

Curate content for your business blog

Content on a blog must be original for Google to rank it positively. However you can curate content from other blogs or websites, from books or magazines.

Build your post around an idea, but always write in your own style.

How to find content for a business blog

Trawl through newspapers and magazines, online or off. Surf the web to find articles of interest. Save them in a place you will be able to refer back to once you start to write. For this I like Pocket or just use regular bookmarking.

Curate content to use in your own article, or share industry news across your networks.

Here are some free tools that help with finding relevant content:

Klout: Klout helps you measure your online impact and also provides good content for you to share across your platforms.

Quora: Quora is an online question and answer community. Choose the topics and you receive back ideas as to what your prospect clients are asking. If you know the answer you can answer it in the community and then, of course, produce a blog post as an off shoot. Quora gives you that insight to the interests of your target audience.

ContentGems: ContentGems finds articles and pages according to your interests, all across the Internet. Use keywords to research your topics the information is produced almost in real-time. Organise articles into a queuing system, ready to post across your social media platforms. Make sure you test the link and read the articles first.

So, plenty of ideas on producing content for a business blog, you have no excuse now!

We create amazing websites to START, GROW & MANAGE your business.

NCS.Technology