Before you get to the nitty-gritty of setting up your blog, there is some pre-work to do. This will ensure you start right and put your best foot forward.
1. Before you do anything else, examine the reasons why you want to publish a blog. What is the purpose for the blog? How does the blog's purpose relate to your business purpose?
2. What are the business objectives or outcomes or goalsyou want from your business blog? Some people use a blog as a lead generator to build their database. Some are looking to build a visibility platform while others use the blog to develop content for other purposes like books, articles and programs. What do you want to get out of your blog?
3. Who is your ideal reader? Who are you writing to/for? For most businesses I've worked with, the ideal reader is similar to their ideal client. It's important to know your audience so you can meet their needs and address their concerns, challenges and what they're looking for to improve their lives.
4. How do you want your readers to feelwhen they read your blog? This may seem like a weird question, yet it will help you tap in the emotions of your audience. Do you want your reader to be inspired, motivated, and moved to action? Again, tapping into this will help you focus your content on serving your reader.
5. What do you want your readers to DOwhen they read your blog? This relates to the goals you set for your blog. If your blog is a lead generator then you must have very clear steps for guiding your reader to subscribe to get blog updates and/or get your lead generating content.
6. How much time do you have to devote to your blog each week? This is getting to the heart of blogging. If you cannot commit to creating constant, consistent content, then you're doing yourself and your readers a disservice. Be honest. The most effective and successful blogs are those with fresh, new content posted at least two to three times per week. Is that reasonable for you to manage? Will you have a team of bloggers? Remember, there are many, many ways to create content. It doesn't have to be all you all the time.
7. What's your blog's core message? This relates to the topic of your blog and the niche you are focused on. What do you want your readers to learn? Why should anyone read your blog and more importantly why should they subscribe and follow your blog? This is another key piece to get in place before you start your blog. Brian Clark publisher of Copyblogger.com recommends creating "cornerstone content." This is a series of posts that articulates your core message and provides new readers with an introduction and overview of what they can expect to learn from you.
8. Create an editorial calendar. It's no secret that content rules on a blog so it's helpful to have a content plan going in to the game. A key element of a good blog is having a list of 7-10 keyword rich categories. Once you determine the categories (or sub-topics) of your blog, you can plan your content calendar. If you plan on posting three times per week, then plot out post ideas for each of your categories. Make a list of 5 topics for each category. Then, fill in your calendar. 5 topics times 10 categories and you've got 50 blog posts in the pipeline.
9. Do your homework.Critical to your blog's success is knowing your competition. Who is already blogging in your niche? What are they writing about? If blogs in your niche are scarce this may be a great opportunity to dominate the search engines with your own content. Finding great blogs will take a bit of time and research. Start at Technorati.com and search for blogs using your keywords. Next use Alltop.com and Blogs.com to find the best of the best.
10. Build your blog.Now that the research is done, you know your message and have a content ready to go, it's time to get down to business and build the blog. This is where the fun part starts and cannot be easily covered in a bullet point.
1. Before you do anything else, examine the reasons why you want to publish a blog. What is the purpose for the blog? How does the blog's purpose relate to your business purpose?
2. What are the business objectives or outcomes or goalsyou want from your business blog? Some people use a blog as a lead generator to build their database. Some are looking to build a visibility platform while others use the blog to develop content for other purposes like books, articles and programs. What do you want to get out of your blog?
3. Who is your ideal reader? Who are you writing to/for? For most businesses I've worked with, the ideal reader is similar to their ideal client. It's important to know your audience so you can meet their needs and address their concerns, challenges and what they're looking for to improve their lives.
4. How do you want your readers to feelwhen they read your blog? This may seem like a weird question, yet it will help you tap in the emotions of your audience. Do you want your reader to be inspired, motivated, and moved to action? Again, tapping into this will help you focus your content on serving your reader.
5. What do you want your readers to DOwhen they read your blog? This relates to the goals you set for your blog. If your blog is a lead generator then you must have very clear steps for guiding your reader to subscribe to get blog updates and/or get your lead generating content.
6. How much time do you have to devote to your blog each week? This is getting to the heart of blogging. If you cannot commit to creating constant, consistent content, then you're doing yourself and your readers a disservice. Be honest. The most effective and successful blogs are those with fresh, new content posted at least two to three times per week. Is that reasonable for you to manage? Will you have a team of bloggers? Remember, there are many, many ways to create content. It doesn't have to be all you all the time.
7. What's your blog's core message? This relates to the topic of your blog and the niche you are focused on. What do you want your readers to learn? Why should anyone read your blog and more importantly why should they subscribe and follow your blog? This is another key piece to get in place before you start your blog. Brian Clark publisher of Copyblogger.com recommends creating "cornerstone content." This is a series of posts that articulates your core message and provides new readers with an introduction and overview of what they can expect to learn from you.
8. Create an editorial calendar. It's no secret that content rules on a blog so it's helpful to have a content plan going in to the game. A key element of a good blog is having a list of 7-10 keyword rich categories. Once you determine the categories (or sub-topics) of your blog, you can plan your content calendar. If you plan on posting three times per week, then plot out post ideas for each of your categories. Make a list of 5 topics for each category. Then, fill in your calendar. 5 topics times 10 categories and you've got 50 blog posts in the pipeline.
9. Do your homework.Critical to your blog's success is knowing your competition. Who is already blogging in your niche? What are they writing about? If blogs in your niche are scarce this may be a great opportunity to dominate the search engines with your own content. Finding great blogs will take a bit of time and research. Start at Technorati.com and search for blogs using your keywords. Next use Alltop.com and Blogs.com to find the best of the best.
10. Build your blog.Now that the research is done, you know your message and have a content ready to go, it's time to get down to business and build the blog. This is where the fun part starts and cannot be easily covered in a bullet point.
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