10 Tips For Great Blogging

One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions this year for marketers would have been to make more time for blogging. This is great on paper but in reality ‘making’ time isn’t that easy; things crop up, emergencies happen and work just gets in the way. Here are ten ways to make sure your companies blog doesn’t get left in the dust this year.

Tips for Great Blogging |Set Reminders

If you’d planned on spending that hour after lunch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to get on with some writing or you’d blocked off Friday mornings then physically book it like you would any other important task. Use your Outlook calendar or your Gmail calendar or even your phone to remind yourself when it’s blogging time. You might even want to share your calendar with a few colleagues so they can see that time slot is booked.

Tips for Great Blogging |Assign Tasks To Employees

You might not have time to get several blog posts a week or even a month out on a regular basis but there might be some people in the office who do. Next time you’re in a staff meeting or speaking to other department heads ask how many of the junior staff have more flexibility in their schedule. You might have an administrator in the accounts department who’s a natural writer or a sales assistant who studied English at college. You might be able to assign just one post a week to a few different people and your time problems are solved.

Tips for Great Blogging |Accept Guest Posts

It’s hard to create a tone of voice for your blog if it’s full of guest posts but accepting a few can be a great way to get fresh new content flowing through your site. There are plenty of people out there who are happy to write something for you in exchange for just a link or two and there are plenty of ways to attract these offers from guest blogging forums to simply adding a ‘write for us’ page to your navigation and letting people find you naturally.

Tips for Great Blogging |Size Doesn’t Matter

One of the biggest problem people find when writing a blog post is writing to a word count. Don’t let this bother you, obviously you don’t want a blog full of posts that are just a few lines long but there’s nothing wrong with shorter posts if you’ve got something useful to say and you’ve got your point across in a shorter word count. Don’t set yourself a specific word count, just write naturally and stop when you feel the post has come to a natural conclusion.

Tips for Great Blogging |Listen To Your Customers

Another common problem people come across when writing blog posts is finding something to write about. There’s a good chance you already know what your customers what to hear, just ask your customer service department. What does your company get asked more than anything else? Is there a product or service you sell they always want to know more about or is there a common trouble shooting question that’s always been asked? Which posts are read the most on your blog, maybe it’s worth writing a follow up post or two?

Tips for Great Blogging |Spy On The Competitors

What are the enemy up to? You probably keep an eye on what special offers and promotions your competitors are running, you probably know what they’re charging for your most popular products but are you also subscribing to their blog? It’s going to look a bit suspicious if you’re always writing about what they wrote about last week but it’s certainly a good place to start looking for inspiration, you might even think they’ve said something completely wrong in which case you could write a response blog post back.

Tips for Great Blogging |Always Jot Ideas Down

The chances are your best ideas come to you on the drive home from work in the evening or in the shower first thing in the morning not when you’re sat at your desk ready to write. Even the most basic phone these days comes with a notepad programme of some kind and if you’re really not that technical buy a small note pad specifically for jotting these ideas down and get in the habit of making a note of them every time you think of something.

Tips for Great Blogging |Set Up Alerts To Stay On Top

Not every blog post is going to be one you’ve planned, you might need to write a response post every once in a while. Make sure you know what’s been said about you and by whom, if your competitors have just written something about you a blog is the easiest way to answer them, publically where everyone can see – unless you have something to hide? You might even find your business being discussed via a social media platform like Twitter so make sure you always know when you’re being talked about.

Tips for Great Blogging |Content Doesn’t Have To Just Be Text

We’ve already talked about not pushing yourself to write to a word count but you also don’t have to publish every post in text form. Some of the most popular blog posts online these days are videos and infographics. Anything that conveys the same message as your text but in a visual way is always going to be more appealing. It’s probably going to take longer to design an infographic than a regular text blog posts but it could prove to be great link bait.

Tips for Great Blogging |Don’t blog just for the sake of it

This last one is a ‘don’t’ rather than a ‘do’. Don’t start blogging just for the fun of it or just because Google likes fresh content. Only blog when you have something relevant and useful to say, your readers will easily be able to tell if you’re writing just to hit a target and the whole quality of your blog will start to go downhill.

About the Guest Blogger: Jessica writes for Splash Direct’s new blog where you’ll be able to read about everything for your bathroom from installing baths to the latest news on heated towel rails.