Start a blog for your business

Launching a business blog can be a highly effective marketing tool. It helps your website get a higher profile on search engines, attracts users’ attention to your site, and gives you credibility as an expert in your industry. Best of all, the only investment you’ll really need to make is time.

That said, it’s important to put thought and effort into your blog. Just as surely as a well-written and properly marketed blog will boost your business’s reputation, a poorly conceived and executed one can harm it.

Begin by thinking about what you want to achieve with your blog. Do you want to become known as an industry expert? Do you want to be cited on other blogs? Do you want your site to rank higher in search engine results? Make a list of your goals.

Next, check out some blogs to get an idea of what you like and don’t like. Search online, and ask colleagues to recommend favorite blogs in your industry and related industries. It doesn’t hurt to read some consumer-oriented blogs, too—for instance, if you have children, check out some parenting blogs. Which blogs do you find the most useful, and what features do they have in common?

Typepad.com, Wordpress.org and Movable Type are three good software options for setting up your blog. The choice depends on which style, templates and features suit your needs.

What topics to cover is up to you, as long as the topics relate to your business. You can even include personal topics as long as you somehow tie them to your business. For example, if you run a marketing consultancy, you could blog about interesting signs you saw in retail shops on your trip to Europe and how they did—or didn’t—convince you to shop there.

Whatever topics you cover, you’ll want to keep the style conversational and natural. In general, shorter entries are better. Finally, provide a way for readers to post their own comments and create a dialogue with you.

There’s nothing worse than a blog that starts out strong, then peters out six weeks after launch with no a few halfhearted posts per month, or none at all. To ensure your blog keeps going strong, put someone on your team in charge of maintaining it.

Decide who on staff is allowed to blog, and set ground rules for what topics they can and can’t cover. (For instance, you don’t want to reveal confidential company information, or give away too much about your future growth plans to competitors.)

Before launching the blog, you should have about 15 or 20 posts written so the blog looks like it has some depth to it. Keep the blog fresh by posting new content at least three times per week. If you don’t post daily, your new posts should go up on the same schedule every week so users know when to expect new content.

Once your blog is up, market it with emails to your customer lists, by prominently featuring a link to it on your web site, and by including the URL at the bottom of your email signatures. Network with other bloggers in your industry, and, when relevant, post comments on their blogs. You’ll also want to submit your blog to RSS and blog directories such as Technorati, Yahoo and Google.

As your blog grows, you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t. Keep fine-tuning it, and you’ll soon see your blog become one of your strongest marketing assets.