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Blogging On A Budget: 3 Tips for Bigger Impact

Ashley Zeckman
Ashley Zeckman
Blog Marketing, Blogging Strategy, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Blogging is one of the top sources of online content creation for many companies. Blogs are a great vehicle for interacting and engaging with current and prospective clients.  Blogs are also an effective way for prospects to associate stories, anecdotes, and personalities with a company or brand.

Taking on a blog can be a large undertaking.  There are many things that should be considered including cost, availability of resources, strategy creation, time commitment, and measurement.  Simply creating content and expecting instant success is not realistic.  If you have recently decided that you would like to start a business blog, or have started a blog and are not seeing the success you had anticipated then the tips below are for you.

Tip #1 – Become a Blog Follower

Starting in the mindset of a consumer is key in determining need.  I recommend you take a look at the list of blogs that you read and ask yourself some questions about why you read them.  If you aren’t currently following any blogs I suggest that you see if some of the newsletters, magazines, or newspapers that you are already reading have a blog.  This will help you kill a couple birds with one stone.  You are still consuming the information that you already enjoy but you are also doing some research for your own blog.  What are some questions you should ask if you are looking to start a blog?

  • What blogs do you follow?
  • Why do you enjoy them?
  • Do you believe they help solve a problem for you as an end user?
  • Does the blog have one or multiple voices?
  • How often do you read these blogs?

Tip #2 – Work Smarter Not Harder

In a tough economy marketers are being forced to do more with less.  The same strategy can be applied to business blogging.  If you have an understanding of content that works well and the mindset of your target audience you can easily create different forms of blog content to keep information updated regularly and efficiently.

Newsworthy items can be a great source of blog content.  You are presenting your audience with information that is important to their business while utilizing statistics and content that has already been created.  Reviewing current business blogs is also a great vehicle for creating content.  This allows you to create a scoring criteria and share with readers what you like and dislike about the blogs that are being reviewed.  Interviews and guest posts can also be a source of content curation for your blog. If you can convince others within your industry to participate in your blog they will be likely to share it with their audience as well.  Guest blogs also add some additional creativity and voice to a business blog.

Tip #3 – Tap Into Available Resources

There may be members of your team that could be a great addition to your company blog.  Contributors from different departments can position themselves subject matter experts and your readers may look forward to the variety that is being provided in the blog content.  While the overall responsibility of the blog may fall on the shoulders of one person or department, that doesn’t mean that other team members cannot contribute.  Multiple authors allows you to tap into multiple networks and is much more sustainable from a content creation perspective in the long run.

While business blogging is not always easy it can be a great project to inspire creativity, teamwork, engage your audience, and improve your brand visibility.  If you are interested in more tips on business blogging please take a look at some of the following posts from the TopRank Online Marketing blog.

  • 5 Tips on Crowdsourcing Content for Marketing
  • The Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize
  • Need Great Ideas for Blog Content? Start With Questions

I am curious to learn a little bit more about the experiences of our readers.  What are the biggest challenges that you have faced as an online marketer as it relates to business blogging.  What are some additional areas of blogging that you may not understand and would like TopRank to provide more information on?

About Ashley Zeckman

Comments

  1. Ben Clemons says

    November 29, 2011 at 9:33 am

    I agree 100% that following blogs that are related to yours will help spark ideas, and help you learn as you go.  RSS feeds are great for this purpose.  I personally use Google reader.

  2. Anonymous says

    November 29, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    Business blogging has helped me to work smarter. I try to answer questions and address issues that readers and customers have in a blog post. Then I’m able to  link to it in e-mails and nesletters rather than answer the same question over and over. 

    • Anonymous says

      November 30, 2011 at 9:22 am

      I really like you approach. Answering questions once and linking to them is a great tip for other bloggers. Keep up the good work!

  3. MySocialMediaMentors.com says

    November 30, 2011 at 3:33 am

    Awesome! Thanks for sharing those important tips for us bloggers to be aware of.

  4. MySocialMediaMentors.com says

    November 30, 2011 at 3:33 am

    Awesome! Thanks for sharing those important tips for us bloggers to be aware of.

  5. majesty group says

    November 30, 2011 at 3:56 am

    body, div, table, thead, tbody, tfoot, tr, th, td, p { font-family: “Arial”; font-size: x-small; }

    Hey I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your blog. You have good views, Keep up the good informative info.Through this bloge we should know that how can we make our business marketing strategy in year 2011. For more information you can visit ou website Marketing consulting services

     

  6. Jency Jockob says

    November 30, 2011 at 3:59 am

    Hey I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your blog. You have good views, Keep up the good informative info.Through this bloge we should know that how can we make our business marketing strategy in year 2011. For more information you can visit ou website Marketing consulting services

  7. Fabrizio Van Marciano says

    December 3, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Great post, tip number is a very insightful one, if you read
    blogs just to find resource and information for your own blog it’s great because
    you should also be learning something new from reading your favourite blogs.

    • Anonymous says

      December 5, 2011 at 4:33 pm

      Agreed. Determining what makes our favorite blogs or the blogs of our competitors successful can lend itself to an internal blogging strategy. Thanks for reading.

  8. Carol Amato says

    December 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    I’ve been working smarter, not harder lately and have seen a big improvement in my business over all. Outsourcing is also a big improvement for me. It gives me so much more time for the most important aspects of my online business. 

  9. Manage Better Now says

    December 10, 2011 at 10:36 am

    I have only been blogging a few months, but commenting on other blogs is what has clearly driven the most traffic to my blog.  Still trying to figure out the whole Technorati ranking process as I cannot get my blog to appear anywhere in their rankings.  I would love to hear any suggestions on improving my Technorati ranking.

  10. Kat Murray says

    September 14, 2012 at 7:23 am

    I’m still skeptical about outsourcing for blogs, it seems that we’re getting to focused on blogging regularly to keep Google happy rather than focusing on our customers and what they’d like to read.

    • azeckman says

      September 14, 2012 at 8:14 am

      Kat:

      TopRank is an advocate for creating optimized content for customers, before search engines. If you do outsource your blog, make sure it is with an agency or team that has a true understanding of who your customers are, and what they care about.

      Thanks for reading!

      Ashley

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