We’ve covered in previous posts why it’s important to blog on your small business website and why a steady stream of fresh content is important, but we haven’t yet taken a look at how you should come up with blog topics for your small business blog. Let’s take a look at Snellville Websites’ recommended steps for writing a blog for your small business website. As you work through these steps, keep a digital or physical list of topics at your desk so that you can have it ready when you start writing a blog.
Step 1: Selecting Blog Topics for Your Small Business Blog
Look at What You Have
Your Current Blog Posts
Sometimes, re-reading one of your old blog posts will remind you that something has been changed or updated in your business processes. Or, reading the post will give you an idea or make you ask a question that your clients may also be asking.
Your FAQ Page
First and foremost, if you don’t have an FAQ page, you should start by either creating one or writing several blogs that answer your clients’ most commonly asked questions. This will both reduce work for you and create useful content for your website. Once you have enough FAQ-type blog posts, create a page on your website that will list just the questions with a link for each to the corresponding blog post.
If you already have a comprehensive FAQ page, take a look at each question and its answer. Could this topic be expanded upon? If so, add that topic to your list.
Your Services Page
Take a look at your services page. Any service that could be expanded upon and explained in more detail could have its own blog page. This will help your website, too, because you can link the new blog post to the original service description with a link to “learn more.”
Do You Have Upcoming Events?
Another great way to come up with blog topics is to think about what events you have coming up. For example, if your business will be at a trade show, you could write a blog about the event, what you will be showcasing, and where to find your booth.
Look at What Your Competition Has
Follow the same steps as above when looking at your competition’s website. You can get ideas from other websites, but be careful not to use their precise wording within your posts. Not only is this considered plagiarism and frowned upon, but it may also be a hit to your SEO score. The best thing you can do is take notes while reading a post, close out the browser window, then write a similar post in your own voice.
You should also be careful not to link to or cite pages that trigger the same SEO keywords that your blog post is attempting to trigger.
Consider Asking Your Clients Directly
If you really are stuck and can’t think of blog topics, you can always reach out to your clients; there’s no reason you can’t crowdsource their interests to come up with blog topics for your small business blog. You may not get a lot of responses unless there’s some type of incentive, but it’s worth a shot.
Step 2: Look at Your List of Blog Topics
Once you have a list of blog topics, you may want to go through them and see if there are any common threads. If there are basic posts that all explain how to do something with your product, you may want to do a “blog series” and release one every week. Another example may be an “FAQ series” throughout which you explain the answers to the questions you hear from your clients on a regular basis. Once you’ve created a plan, it’s time to select one topic and write it!
Another thing you may want to consider is the timing for certain posts’ publishing. For example, a post about breast cancer awareness would be a good addition to your healthcare blog at any time of the year, but it may see more views at the beginning of October – Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Step 3: Writing a Blog Post for Your Snellville Small Business Blog
Now, coming up with topics is one thing, but sitting down to write a 500-word post is a whole different beast. If you struggle to write blog posts, consider starting with your last paragraph or “outro.” This paragraph should be easiest to write, as it will mainly be a “call-to-action” (CTA) along with a brief summary of what your blog post is all about. Here are a few tips to help you create great blog posts:
- Before you start writing, ask yourself what the goal of the post is.
- Inform on a topic
- Motivate readers
- Get search engine visibility
- Drive a conversion… etc.
- Make sure your first paragraph gets the reader interested.
- Use headers and formatting like bold and italics. They help readers skim your content.
- Use keywords in the following places for maximum SEO triggers:
- Your post’s title
- The first paragraph
- As many of your headers as seems natural
- The body text, wherever it feels natural
- Any photo captions
- The last paragraph
- Search engines also love when content has both internal and external links.
- Place your CTA at the very end of your post, and make it feel as natural as possible.
- Not every blog needs a CTA – don’t force them.
However, the most important part is to just get one done. Once you’ve written the first blog post for your site, you’ll see how simple it can be.
Step 4: Post Your Blog on Your Snellville Website!
We won’t go into detail on how to post a blog right now, but you can find all of that information here: Adding New Posts to Your Snellville or Gwinnett County SBM WordPress Website. Don’t forget to add a featured, royalty-free image to your post, add metadata for the image, drop your post into a category, and add tags to your post.
Not Your Cup of Tea?
Here at Snellville Websites, we have content creators that write content for clients on a regular basis. Small businesses like yours in the Snellville area can sign up for automatic content generation and posting to your website if it is hosted with us. For more information about this service, get in touch with us today.
