Part 3: Getting Started With Your First Blog

June 1, 2008

Part 3 of mhn Internet Marketing Communications free seminar held June 2 in Elgin, Illinois.

Part 1: Introduction to Business Blogging

Part 2: Business Blogging Success Stories

Part 3: Getting Started with a Business Blog

Getting Started with Your First Business Blog

Now is the fun part! You have probably already decided that you want to create a blog. Now you need to figure out what the topic is going to be and how it will benefit your businesses.

Step 1: Pick a Blog Topic

Your business blog topic could be something as simple as highlighting new products that your store carries, or it could be more complex – such as this blog where I share pieces of knowledge so clients and prospective clients can better understand what we do. Ideally, your topic should have cohesion and be narrow enough to build a following. For instance – if you are a travel agent, don’t write about “travel” pick a topic that is narrow enough that it speaks to a specific topic – “honeymoon cruises” or “ski vacations”.

Another idea is to start a blog to help customers out. This could be an auto-maintenance blog for a mechanic shop – ultimately people aren’t going to do their own oil or replace struts, but you can provide tips about improving fuel economy, detecting when tires need to be replaced etc. If done properly, you are almost certain to bring customers in to use your services or buy your products before they thought they needed to.

This same theory would work exceptionally well for doctors, lawn care services, nurseries, arborists, and handymen.

Picking your blog subject is a major step and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you need help figuring out a topic, we are always available to offer specific blog consulting services.

Step 2: Pick a Blog Engine

We recommend WordPress to most of our clients because the software is free and has an extensive user community developing new plugins and templates. There are two options here: self-hosted (on a webserver), where your blog name will look like: blog-name.com or as part of wordpress.com where your blog will look like: blog-name.wordpress.com.

Another excellent blog engine is Blogger (owned by Google) … it is much more simple than Wordpress, so it makes a great place to start your blogging journey but it is also more limited in what you can do with it.

An alternative solution would be to have someone manage the blog for you, so all you need to do is create content to upload – but other tasks such as keyword research, analytics tracking, maintaining security updates etc. are taken care of by a third party.

We offer this service, using WordPress as the base, or you can go with another service like Compendium Blogware that has their own proprietary system that they license to clients to use for a set number of categories and users.

Step 3: Pick a Template or Blog Theme

There are tons of free template sites out there, or for just starting out, you can use the default Wordpress template until you figure out what your blog needs.

Some Free Wordpress Themes sites that you should check to start your search: http://themes.wordpress.net/ and http://www.wpthemesfree.com/

Step 4: Setup Your Blog Back-End

There are various steps that can be done to tweak the backend of your Wordpress template, but for the most part, once you install Wordpress – especially if you are just setting it up on wordpress.com it is ready to start posting. Setting up your wordpress blog is something we can help you with if you need specific help.

Unfortunately free software does suffer from this problem and is one of the reasons why services like

Step 5: Writing Blog Posts

This step is going to be something you are going to do a few times a week, or even on a daily basis if you feel comfortable doing so. We recommend that you pick a general frequency that works well for you and try to stick to that.

Remember, once you start writing, if you stop for a week or two, it looks like you went away and nothing is going on with your company.

Step 6: Monitoring Your Blog Traffic

Different blog engines have different systems for measuring blog traffic, so you should install a tool so you know where people are coming from and what they are looking for. Feed the blog content that you want more traffic from and you will be rewarded.

Step 7: Promoting Your Blog!

Search engines are going to find your blog, but it is always a good idea to go out and let people know about it too.

This could be as simple as printing “blog cards” and handing them to customers, or including your blog link in your email signature. It could also mean going to places like Yahoo Answers or other related blogs and answering questions or posting comments on topics that you are an expert on. Again, this will create links back to your blog as well as promote your blog in the eyes of the other blog’s readers.

Now that you have your blog up and running, you will need to keep repeating steps 5, 6, and 7 as well as learning more about advanced topics and other tools that you can use to connect your blog to the rest of the world. We can help you with if you need help.

Posted in Business Blogging, Marketing Seminars, Social Media Marketing