Following on from my recent post about The blog as an effective SEO tool for small businesses, here's a 12 step guide to a successful small business blog. It's by no means a complete list but I reckon it probably gives you more than enough to get on with. If you can even achieve some of these you'll be well on the road to success and the generation of additional traffic (and hopefully sales leads) through your website.

1. Frequent posts
   You'll find it very difficult to gain any sort of recognition if you don't post regularly. It's bad news if a potential customer stumbles upon your site but gets fooled into thinking you're lazy or inactive because your last blog post was six months ago. If this is the case and you don't think you'll get round to remedying the situation, it's probably better just to hide the blog from public view until you get round to giving it the attention it so richly craves.

   Most blogging software (Blogger, Wordpress, etc) allows you to write as many posts as you wish and assign them a future publishing date at which point it will magically appear on the site. If you get the opportunity, gather notes and links that might inspire some decent blog entries and then set aside a few hours every week to turn them into posts. At this point, you can then schedule the posts to appear over the next 7 days to create the impression that you're completely on top of your blogging strategy.

2. Be useful to your audience
   Write about and link to new updates of your site, answer to common questions, examples of projects using your products or services. Add pictures of places who've used your product, mentions in magazines, tips, lists. "How to" posts are popular as are creative ways to use your products.
3. Horses for courses...
   Not a popular one for the control freak this I'm afraid. Look for someone in your organization who can write - it may be someone who is already blogging, or who has personality and knowledge. In my experience, staff with customer service or front of house experience can be a great choice. They may even welcome the chance to develop a new skill. The great thing about using a customer service rep is that they usually know what customers are asking about and that in itself could be turned into a great series of posts.
4. Link away!
   This one is a no-brainer. Add links wherever possible. Link to external sources of information, give credit where it's due. Link back to relevant pages within your own site. If you mention a previous article, link to it. Search engines love this. A common mistake by we bloggers is that they don't often link to other sites and this really affects their visibility.

5. Involve customers
   Getting customers involved can be a great way of increasing traffic and activity around your blog. Ask people to send in pictures of their projects and a short paragraph about them. Flatter customers by showcasing them on your blog (or if they blog, highlight it) - with their permission of course. It might also be an idea to include success stories or testimonials too.
6. Keep it pretty
   Make sure your blog is readable. Avoid huge blocks of text and use language that suits the audience you are communicating with. The web varies from the printed media and as a result requires more whitespace, bulletpoints and shorter sentences.
   
7. This week's special guest is...
   It will happen at some point where you just won't be able to think about anything to write about. If you do find yourself a bit short of ideas or even just want to add variety to your blog, ask for guest posts by partners/manufacturers to give customers more in-depth insight into products. Another approach is to ask employees to guest post on their expertise. They can email you their thoughts which you can add to the blog.

8. Alert! Alert!
   Sign up for Google alerts and put one on your company name, products, or buzzwords so you can track what is being said about your company online. Then you can comment back, get ideas for posts, and write about what people are saying.
9. The appliance of (SEO) science
   Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needn't be the domain of the experts. There's a lot you can do yourself and if you apply these basics to your blog posts you'll greatly improve your visibility. Follow the guidelines in my recent Basic website optimization works - 6 things anyone can do. article. Use keywords in anchor text and title of blog posts. If you use Wordpress, download the free and invaluable All In One SEO Pack.

10. Friendliness counts
    If you respond to comments on your posts, it will encourage more comments and can lead to an idea for another post. If the comment is negative, respond fast and thank them for expressing their opinion. Ask how you can improve, point out ways you're addressing the issues. This is a chance to right a wrong with the public in a very public setting.
11. Categorize!
    Some visitors may only be interested in posts on specific topics. If you create different categories (this blog has categories such as SEO, email marketing, clients, design) then visitor will be able to more efficiently find posts that interest them.
12. Patience!
    Don't expect your blog to become an overnight sensation. It can take a while for your blog to gain it's Google authority. Just keep plugging away at creating interesting, informative and useful posts that engender customer interaction and that increase your profile and you'll be sure to get there in the end.

Good luck! Get in touch if you think we could help you.

Ubisan Management