Blogging is often an albatross around the neck of small business owners. We are constantly tempted by content, sharing memes and consuming vast quantities of information, for the small business owner the guilt of inactivity looms large and procrastination sets in.

The guilt and inactivity leads to these common complaints;

• Knowing that it should be a priority but never prioritising it enough to do it.
• Missing out on the long term business benefits but frustrated at the lack of short term results when you do publish the odd one.
• Having lots of great ideas scribbled paper or tapped into your phone but never converting to the written word satisfactorily.

Knowing where to start is half the battle, and knowing what to do and what not to do is a massive leg up too.

To help you find your feet and get cracking, or to help evolve what you already do I’ve prepared a list of handy do’s and don’ts for you.

Blogging for Sales Growth- Do’s and Don’ts for Small Business Owners.

Do

• Think of your blog as part of your prospect’s journey and not the destination, so fill your blogs with relevant CTA’s, give the reader more of what they want and show them where to find it.
• Write for your target persona(s); empathise, understand and engage. Don’t worry about other people missing the point, this is all about engagement of your future clients.
• Solve problems for your target persona. Particularly the ones that your organisation can cover, but not exclusively. You are building the value of your advice piece by piece.
• Blog regularly but not slavishly. The statistics for lead generation in an active blog indicate that more is better but moderate that with caution, good content always.
• Use multiple bloggers for your organisation. It is a great way to produce a range of different styles of content; a lone voice, blogging every day may become repetitive and mundane.
• Use good quality images, this makes a huge difference when you are broadcasting on social. 2x as much engagement.
• Include it as an integral part of your lead generating and sales conversion strategy. Always be considering the next action.
• Use it to establish your credibility and authority on the subject matter. What a world we live it, with the right tone, content and strategy you can reach around the world. The blog is your platform into the hearts and minds of your future clients.
• Be consistent, write to a plan in the main, with the odd opinion piece or leftfield article thrown in.
• Use third parties for content, a guest blogger can be a great source of new content and potential leads.
• Manage the SEO, much of your content will remain evergreen, and this will contribute to your Google ranking, so think about keywords, density, readability, alt images etc
• Promote it, regularly and heavily on your social media channels. Don’t assume that everyone has read it on the first or second pass. Remember the ZMoT.

Don’t

• Wait. One is better than none and so on. Even if you don’t write them yourself, get publishing.
• Feel you have to write all the content yourself. You will be surprised how quickly a good writer can get up to speed with your organisational voice and the needs of your clients and prospects.
• Be afraid to share your opinion.
• Think it’s all about traffic to your site. Your blog is an integral tool in the sales conversion process. If you knew that in 12 months you’d double the number of new leads your business created you’d start now, and wish you’d started 12 months ago.
• Neglect it. 67% of all sales leads go to companies with an active blog. That’s two-thirds; if you aren’t blogging you are losing out.
• Be boring… pick a topic, stay on topic and finish early.
• Just stick to one media, use video, audio and visual. Create a blend of different styles of delivery.
• Fail to engage. Aim it at your target persona, solve a problem, ask for feedback.
• Forget to use images. Blogs with images get 2x as many views.
• Be irrelevant.
• Expect it to change your situation overnight, you are in this for the long haul.

I appreciate it’s hard to start and hard to continue, but blogging is one of the current digital marketing tools that, when done well, has great RoI and longevity too. What’s more the cost of entry is comparatively small compared to paid advertising.

If you have any questions on this or anything else please pop over to our contact page and drop us a line. Or if you’d like a free copy of our latest book click on the image below.

Best wishes,

Adam