Avoiding the Mistakes every Small Business Blogger Makes
Avoiding the Mistakes every Small Business Blogger Makes
When people run their own business and they read about how every business needs a blog to succeed, they tend to misinterpret this common exhortation somewhat. They feel that you need to have a blog whether or not you know how to run one or care about one. Running a blog the wrong way tends to be far worse than not running one at all. Small businesses, more and more, are trying their hand at content development. As they try to do this, observers are beginning to see how businesses, if they do it right, tend to gain new customers or retain existing ones. When they make a mistake though, it’s easy to see how they quickly tarnish their image (and their customer roster). What kinds of mistakes can you make as a business blogger? Consider these.
Avoiding the Mistakes every Small Business Blogger Makes
Before the Internet came along, things were rather simple. Wherever you chose to set up your business, you physically belonged there and nowhere else. These days though, every business on Earth is practically in one place – the first page of a popular search engine. Basically, your blogging efforts need to be tied in with your plans to hog a good spot on a good search engine. Before you actually get into content creation, you need to try to think about what exactly you’re trying to achieve through this. Are you trying to get people to be more aware of your brand and your business? Is your blog’s post to read like a commercial so that it succeeds directly in selling something? Perhaps you just want a blog to get your name out there and connect with people for no specific agenda (which would be good, too). Do you wish to just have your voice heard or do you wish to build a community where people gather around?
Avoiding the Mistakes every Small Business Blogger Makes
The problem with being a small business blogger is that as usual, responsibility for the blog falls to the overworked businessman who runs the whole show. It can be quite difficult to take care of a quality blog when everything else clamors for one’s attention. If the owner of a business is pretty clear that he wishes to grow and nurture an online community, that would be a great reason to never neglect the blog. Lots of businesses start a blog without putting much thought into whether they have the time to support it. A neglected blog kind of makes a bad impression.
Have you read about how Zappos, the shoe retailer, has been spending half a million dollars correcting the grammar and language on its user comments pages? They do this because visitors to a website or a blog, when they read poorly written stuff, go away with a terrible impression about the whole website. Apparently, they’ve found that when a visitor reads a negative comment about a product that’s written in perfect English, he still walks away with a good impression of what the product stands for. On the other hand, when he reads a poorly-written positive comment about a product, he refuses to buy that product. The language quality of what you say on your blog really rubs off.
And your blog posts need to invite participation from visitors to your blog. That’s supposed to be the whole point of any blog post – that it should invite participation. A blog post doesn’t have to be a lengthy dissertation. It just has to be a provocative and well written opinion on something that is likely to draw reader interest.
Avoiding the Mistakes every Small Business Blogger Make
