How to find Interesting Blog Posts Topics for Your Business Blog

Interesting content is your key to success, which in plain English means: To get targeted readers to keep coming back to your business blog and reading what you write about, you have to write what is interesting to your readers. It is important to find interesting blog posts topics for your business blog on a constant basis. Your posts must be thought through, well written and relevant to your business and your audience. But this is easier said than done! So we will give you some ideas where you can get some inspiration for your business blog!

Brainstorming for blog post topics

The most important step to find interesting blog posts topics for your business blog is to brainstorm. Finding a subject that is interesting, but that you can also write a post about is not always easy. You must really think about what you want your readers to know about, but you also must find something that you know they want to read about. Don’t hesitate to use tools to help you brainstorm. Here are a few ideas to help you in this process:
- You can use forums in your niche to get ideas, and see what are the most popular topics in the industry. Just because other people already wrote about a topic doesn’t mean you can’t. Your writing style, your experience and your knowledge can bring something different to the table, and complete the information given by other writers. It is really important that you chose your topics carefully.
- You can also use the Google Keyword tool to search for related keywords. This might spark an idea in you and you can also see what people are looking for.
- Check out comments posted on your previous posts, or on other posts. It can give you an idea about what your readers want to know, what questions they want answered, and what recurrent topics come out, and need to be developed.
- When you already covered a broad topic, it is also a good idea to try to find other blog post topics that explain certain aspects in more detail. For this you can use a Mind Mapping software to help you broaden your ideas. A few different software are available, for free, online; or you can use the old paper and pen version. One is not better than the other, it just depends of your preferences.
- If you run out of ideas, don’t be afraid to ask your readers what they want to learn about, what topics they would like you to cover. It can help you get a list of ideas started and direct you toward a new topics.

Company news are great blog post topics

Company news are always a good topic. As your blog is an informative tool to enable your readers to be updated on the industry and your business ->use it! Possible blog posts topics for your business blog can be :
- Your company’s participation at a social event. You can talk about event in general and why your company chose to participate. Show some pictures and make it engaging.

- Your employee of the month. This is a great way to give a human aspect to your blog. Don’t forget to refer to people and not only write about abstract topics, like sales and numbers. Present your employee’s background and what he or she represents for your company.

- Did one of your employees accomplish something great outside of the office, like run a marathon, finish his or her degree or published a book? Write about it! This will not only give your employee a feeling of recognition, but also shows that you care about the people that work for you from a different aspect. Show them, that they are more than just a payroll number for you.

- Social effort and engagement. It is important to let your readers know what you do for the community and how you do it. You show them your involvement and a caring side that nowadays every readers is looking for…. Plus you might also teach something to your readers and inspire them to get socially more engaged.

- Training methods. A blog post about your training methods lets your readers know more about your business. It allows them to understand the business in general better and how it functions.

- You can also find inspiration in the daily news. Use Google Alerts to keep you up to date with what people are writing about your keywords. If you find a topic that relates to your business you can develop a certain point of that information to explain your readers more specifically how this affects your industry and your business.

And if you are not sure if your company news is relevant or how to present it to make it interesting, check out other niches and other industry blogs and read how they present themselves. It might direct you on a topic or help you get an feel for what kind of information to share and how to present this information.

Share your Experience in your business blog

Your readers are interested in you. Don’t be afraid to share your experience. You can give your opinion on a certain product supporting it by evidence and your personal experience using it. You can also write about yourself to give a human touch to your blog. It solidifies that trust relationship you try to develop with your readers. It helps them feel more important knowing you are comfortable sharing a little about yourself. Use this once in a while to show a little about the person behind the blog, but remember to keep your business and what it represents the center of interest. Sharing your experience can also mean sharing what problems your company faced and how you resolved them (such as customers complaints, or a not so successful service or product, or today’s effects of the economic situation on your company).

Blog readers also like to read about the development of new products, so this should be included in your list of ideas! Keep them updated on what you are working on and share your progress, ask them for ideas and what features you should concentrate on! It will not only give you something to write about, but also helps you to make a winning product! It is important to show your personal growth as well as your business growth to underline the strong points of your business and let your readers know you can handle challenges.

Point of Focus

It is also important when searching for interesting blog posts topics for your business blog to follow a pattern. Write about topics that are related. For example, you can chose a broad topic and then get into more details in following posts. For example, write  one blog post with a broad description the Social Media Sites available to companies, and then write different post explaining which Social Media Site is most appropriate for a more particular type of business. Then you can interlink these blog posts and make your blog “sticky”. You can also pick a topic about the industry and then apply it to your business more specifically…

If you really have a writing block and find no inspiration, read your older posts. It can help you find a topic to expand or update. The importance is to follow a certain logic so that you don’t get off track and lose your readers attention. A good way to do this is to follow a pattern in your writing. Maybe make a list of how to organize your posts: first a post on the industry, then a post on company news, then a post reviewing products, then an answer to customers, then a personal experience, and back to the industry… and so on.

These steps will help you to find interesting blog posts topics for your business blog. Find a way that works for you and that you are comfortable with so that you never run out of ideas. Remember brainstorming is the major step to take, and company news are always good information to present, but don’t forget to ask yourself, if  your audience is interested in this topic, and if you as a reader would want to read it!

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The True ROI of Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is not FREE! You are investing your time and therefore money in Social Media Marketing, and as any business investments you want to know what Return On Investments you can gain from it? Legitimate question! You should wonder, and you should know, because understanding and learning about the ROI of Social Media Marketing allows you to use it efficiently and really promote your business in the most effective way. So what is the ROI of Social Media Marketing? Keep reading to find out!

The quick answer: The ROI of Social Media Marketing is what you want it to be. Do you want to focus on better customer service? Or attract side markets to your business? Or may be you want to develop a loyal and trusting relationship with your customer? Well, then concentrate on those numbers. For some  metric examples and numbers on how to measure your Social Media Marketing check the end of the article!

Useful information

One of the first goal of Social Media Marketing is to inform. Your Social Media tools enable you to provide useful information about your business to educate your customers, and inspire potential customers that they need your product or service. The R.O.I. of Social Media Marketing then, is shown by analyzing how many of your current customers you have been able to keep and turn them into a loyal customer base and how many of new potential clients you have been able to turn into real customers. Another goal of Social Media Marketing is to teach your customers how you differ from your competition, explain what makes your product or service unique and the best solution for their problem or need, and also why there is a advantage for them and the rest of the society to follow you. The ROI of Social Media Marketing here is to see how many of your customers have started following you instead of your competitors.

Branding

Social Media Marketing helps your business gain an identity online. You establish a reputation for your business through Social Media tools, which allows targeted readers, customers and other businesses in your industry to recognize your brand, to recognize who you are and what your business represents. On the long term, the loyalty from your customers gained is the ROI of Social Media Marketing efforts. On shorter term, your ROI is the increasing number of customers and potential customers aware of your business existence on the market, and your presence online.

Customer Support and Product/Service Improvement

With Social Media tools you can reach more customers, but most of all you incite them to engage in improving what your business needs to change. You can make them feel involved, create communication and have them generate new ideas for your business – new ideas, innovation, or improvements or product differentiation, all of them will help you to stay ahead of the competition. This helps you understanding the need of your targeted readers and answer those needs the most efficiently possible. The ROI of Social Media Marketing is the feedback you receive from your customers and see how you are able to provide a better response to your customers.

Trust and a Trusting Network

Social Media Marketing has been proven to help businesses create a whole new relationship with their customers and business partners. The customer support ( as describe previously) enabled through the use of such tools enables you to drive a connection between your business and your customers. The constant attention given to your customers and your ability to keep their attention as well, gives your business the great opportunity to create, develop and strengthen a strong trust relationship with your customers. You, therefore, grow your network, on strong basis, for a long term commitment.

The ROI of Social Media Marketing can’t really be measured as a financial result, at least not initially. But it is measured through an analysis of your business, its online presence, the awareness you were able to develop, and quantity and quality of the followers you were able to gain and keep, and the identity you created for your business.

Social Media Marketing ROI Metrics

Here are a couple of numbers and metrics that you should keep an eye on to measure your Social Media Marketing ROI. But always remember to gather these information before you start with your Social Media Campaign, so you can compare the before and after results !

• Search Engine results and website traffic
• Brand recognition
• Customer complaints
• Customer complaints response rate
• Product returns
• Negative comments/positive comments about your company online
• One-time vs. returning customers
• Backlinks
• Time savings (for example, when you refer your customers to helpful blog articles rather than answering them all over and over again!)

These are just a few metrics that will help you determine the profitability of Social Media Marketing, but there are many more. It depends very much on where you want to focus on. Building a Social Media Marketing campaign is more than just setting up a Facebook page and following random people on Twitter. Focusing on specific aspects of Social Media will bring you more targeted results, so establish a strategy first and monitor the results!

Social Media Marketing is a long term process, where data analysis, and not dollars amount, tells you how successful you are.

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Best Keyword Optmization Tips for Your Blog

Keyword Search – Keyword Search – Keyword Search!!! All Bloggers know how important Keywords are for any blog post to rank well with Search Engines. Keywords are your key to a good position on Google and other Search Engines and without proper keyword research and keyword optimization, your great and valuable content might be lost on page 276 of the search results. So here is some advice on how to do keyword research and how to optimize your content for your target audience!

Keyword Search Tools

There are many Keyword Research tools out there, some of them for free and some of them some offer their services for a monthly fee. I usually use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. It is a free and easy to use Keyword tool and definitely my most favorite keyword tool! Just select the correct language and location, enter your keyword or keyword phrase and the captcha and hit the button “Get Keyword ideas”. Google will then do a Keyword search for you and spit out a list of related Keywords, as well as how many searches were made for this keyword/keyword phrase in the past month in your defined language and location, as well as the global keyword search volume. Unter the Show/Hide Columns Drop Down menu you can also enable the “Estimated Avg. CPC”, so the estimated average Cost per Click, if you chose to run a Google Ads campaign. The great advantage of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool is that it also gives you good results for other languages. On the negative side, though, when you export your keyword search results, it will only export the keywords and not the search volume. This means, you either need to have a brain like an elephant or if you are like me, just do it right before your blog post!

Long Tail Keyword Phrases

When you do your keyword research, you should keep in mind, that it will be easier to rank well for longer keyword phrases as for short one-word keywords. For example, when you search for Grand Canyon, you will have 17,400,000 search results, but when you search for attractions Grand Canyon, then you only have 1,200,000 search results. Of course, in your keyword research you will see that about 2,740,000 people search for Grand Canyon, and only 12,100 search for attractions Grand Canyon. So why would you want to optimize your blog post for the keywords attractions Grand Canyon when so much more people search for Grand Canyon? Well the reason is simple: When you optimize for Grand Canyon, you will have a very slim chance to make it onto the first couple of pages of Google, but when you optimize for the keyword phrase attractions Grand Canyon you will not only have a better chance on ranking high for attractions Grand Canyon, but also have the same chances to appear somewhere on the Grand Canyon search. So you don’t have anything to lose, right!

How often and where should you use your keywords in a blog post

When you use your keywords or keyword phrases, it is not only important to include them several times , but also, where and how you include them. Always remember to include your most important keywords in the headline and in the url (when you use pretty links), but also in the subheadings within your blog post. Also, try to make your keywords stand out, so make them bold. Google will recognize that this word has a special meaning and is important when you highlight it! When you include images or links in your blog post, include your keywords in the title.

However, it is also important that you do not stuff your blog post with keywords. You should also keep in mind, that you are writing for your readers, not for search engines. But on the other hand, it is also important to know, that most of your readers do not read your blog post from the beginning to end, rather they are skimming through your text. That means, they will most likely read over half your keywords and won’t notice if you use the same word or phrase within one paragraph. So as a rule of thumb on how many times you should use your keywords: Depending on the length of the blog post, but I would suggest you use your keywords and keyword phrases a minimum of 5 times for short blog posts and about 7-8 times for longer ones. This should not be to hard, if you include your keywords in your headlines, image and link descriptions and then also within your text. Important: Remember that one count is always for one version of the keyword! Your blog post will not be optimized, when you change the keywords and use several versions. For example, do not use keyword, keywords, key word, important keywords, best keywords, keyword search, keyword research, but all of them just once! This way, you will not be able to compete with a blog post that used fewer versions, but several times.

Including keywords and keyword phrases into your blog post is very important and you should not start writing your blog post before you did your keyword research.

Do you have any more questions about keywords, keyword research or have a fool proof tip that has brought you great success? Please leave us a comment! This is very much appreciated!

If you want to learn more about writing blog posts for your company blog, here is some additional reading:

Why you should avoid pushy sales talk on your business blog

Blogging for Business 101 Presentation

How to start your business blog

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Characteristics of a Good Business Blogger

Social Medias have become a great tool to personalize your business. But to be efficient, you must bring more than a good content to the table. Your blogs will not write themselves, so what are the Characteristics making a business blogger a Good Business Blogger?

Motivation

No one can really be efficient in his job if there is a lack of motivation – this is the same in business blogs writing. To bring the best of you in your writing you need to write about topics that interest you: share your passion! If you write about topics that you don’t like (even though you will have to sometimes) you will less likely make a positive impact on your readers and lose their attention. Make your business interesting to them, show them why you chose that industry and make them understand what you liked about it. Talk about what is motivating you everyday to wake up and keep giving a 100% of your efforts to your business.

Commitment

Just like in other activities, to be a good business blogger you must have the “good blogger spirit”. If you decide to lose 10 pounds you will set yourself goals and follow them. Blogging is the same. Be committed to your blog posts. Your first goal is to gain  your readers/customers’ attention. Once you get your readers attention you can’t just leave them waiting, you need to make sure you can feed their appetite for information. Set yourself a number of posts to publish per month but don’t forget that quality will have a better impact than quantity.

Tracking of your blog posts

Make sure to evaluate the impact of your blogs. Keep track of the feedback from your customers and don’t be afraid of the negative comments – take them as a chance to improve! Make sure to answer their questions or direct them to the answer they are looking for. If you realize one of the topic is less popular, then focus on another one. Why waste time on topics your customers don’t read? And if you think these topics are very important try to change the style, the keywords, or just tell your customers they should be interested and maybe why….

Information and awareness

Remember, social media marketing will help you promote your business on an informative level. Your blogs first and major goal is to inform your customers about your business. This is your awareness tool! Forget the marketing spin, leave it to commercials and spam. Why does a blogger write? To share what he knows, to teach, to inform his audience and of course to make sure more and more people are reached by this information and are aware it is available for them!

Audience, Audience, Audience!

You write FOR your audience. While writing focus on your topic of choice and make it easy to follow, but always remember whom you’re writing for and why. Don’t forget: there is not just content in a blog. A good business blogger need to make sure to be found easily from his readers. You must make sure you are making it easy for your audience to find you. You are the one promoting your business so show your readers you are making it easy for them and you are doing it for them. And finally make your self available to them: don’t forget an email, or a twitter, facebook link that will allow them to give you feedback. A good business blogger enables his customers to feel personally targeted.

So now, if you are ask to define a good business blogger, you will say that A Good Business Blogger must be characterized as a motivated writer than is committed to its audience and optimize its reader awareness by monitoring closely the impact of his business blogs.

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How to Start Your Business Blog

Starting a business blog is not an easy task and needs some planning to become successful! Market Your Startup gives you some helpful advice on how to get your business blog started.

- Find somebody that is willing to take ownership of the blog project and a support team: You need a person that is interested in becoming the blog Manager, has experience with blogging and knows how to write. While this person should be responsible for the blog and become the go-to person, there should also be a support team, that writes articles and promotes the blog through different venues. After you find a suitable and trusted person that will take on the business blog project, the most important step of starting your business blog is done!

- Define the purpose of the blog (Internet Presence, Branding, Traffic, SEO): What do you want to achieve with your business blog? Do you want to increase your visibility, brand your company, drive traffic to your website, improve your customer service or achieve better Google results? Probably all of the above… but you should focus on one or two main goals as the purpose for  your business blog to stay focused and targeted.

- Integrate WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System) on your website or a separate domain: It is the most user friendly CMS on the market and in addition to that, you can find hundreds of free and cheap templates for your business blog. As your business blog wants to be very as professional as possible, stay away from sponsored blog spaces, such as Blogger, WordPress and dimilar blogging services. You  want to set up your business blog either on your website as an integrated part of it, or set up a new domain for your business blog.

- Find and install a template for your business blog:I don’t believe that you need a custom design for your blog right away. Of course it will take away some branding strength, but especially for small startups, the money is better spent somewhere else and not on your upstarting business blog. I would also not recommend to use a free template, unless you are on a very tight budget. I can personally recommend WooThemes. This whole website is actually built on one of their templates! And they only cost $70 and you get a second template for free.

- Use Google keyword tool to create a list of relevant keywords that are searched for often: Depending on how competitive your niche is, the more often you should include the keywords in your text. However, keep in mind that you are still writing for people and not Search Engines. It won’t do you any good, if people find your business blog, but are turned off right away because every other word is a forced keyword. You can also use the Keyword tool to generate new ideas for blog posts and learn what people are interested in!

- Brainstorm topics and establish a topic list: Sit down with your blog Manager and the blogging team to brainstorm about topics that could be of interest for your potential customers. Always a good starting point for your business blog are the following ideas:

- Describe your products/services, their advantages and disadvantages

- Tell your customers what they can do with your products/services (recipes for food items, travel tips for hotels, etc.)

- Inform about company news; and of course the first one will be about the new business blog of your company. Also of interest: Social Activities, employee activities, employee of the month etc.

- Group the topics into categories: After you came up with 30-50 topics, you have to group them into categories. You should focus on a few categories first, so your business blog is not too thinly spread out. Offer your readers deeper insights on these few categories first and then add more and more categories later on. A good starting point would be 4-5 categories with at least 5-10 blog posts in them. After that, you can add more and more categories to your business blog, while still adding to the old ones.

- Write the blog posts: Finally, you can actually start your business blog. Start writing articles for you business blog, include the most important keywords, edit them and proofread them, and finally publish them on your brand new business blog. Congratulations! You have accomplished the first step to promote your business through your business blog! But for a business blog to become really successful, you need to promote it too!

- Promote them on Social Media Sites and other internet venues (newsletters, pressreleases, etc): To get the first heap of traffic to your new business blog, utilize your existing contacts, mailing lists and current and previous customers and inform them that you just started a business blog. You can also use other Social Media tools, such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Technorati, Blogsphere and other sites to promote your business blog. The easiest way is to install the Sociable Plugin, which will make it easy for your readers to share your stories with their network and spread the word for you! Read this article to see how you can use Twitter effectively for your business! You can also leave comments with backlinks on related blog post or in forums related to your industry and leave a link to your business blog. However, be careful with this tool, so you don’t earn yourself the reputation of a spammer. Only leave comments on related blog posts and personalize your comments.

- Respond to comments: Even after writing your blog post, the work is not done! Your business blog manager should frequently reply to comments on your blog and engage in the conversations that take place on your business blog. Important: Don’t be afraid of negative comments! People are most likely already talking about you and your company and not always in a positive way! Wouldn’t you rather have them talk about the problems of your product or service where you can monitor and interact with them? A negative comment is only bad, if you ignore it. See it as constructive criticism and give your best to make an angry customer happy again!

Starting a business blog is not easy. It is hard work, needs talent and creativity and of course a budget as well. Don’t give up too soon and stick to it! Good luck with starting your business blog!

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