Six Essential Questions for the Business Blogger

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been toying with the idea of starting a business blog, or if you’ve been feverishly blogging about your company’s widgets for years: you have plenty more to learn. A quick look through Google’s list of “business blogs” reveals some common problems: lack of activity, poor readership and appalling representations of the businesses they’re meant to promote. These issues do more than render a company blog ineffective; they can do real harm by giving potential customers the impression that the business simply can’t be bothered to get it right.

What follows are six simple questions you need to ask yourself if you’re starting a business blog or have one already. They won’t take long to answer, but they will help you strengthen your writing, connect with your readers, and build your business’ online presence in a truly positive way.

1. Why am I blogging?
Think long and hard about what you expect to gain from your business blog, because you’re going to be investing hours of your valuable time into it each week (and if you’re not, you should be). Mapping out a specific goal for your blog will serve you in two important ways: it will make the writing process easier as time goes on, and it will vastly increase your chances of success.



To map the most appropriate goals for your blog, consider the nature of your business. If you’re a retailer, for example, you might want your blog to increase direct sales, or serve as a customer support center. If you’re a consultant, on the other hand, you might want your blog to help establish you as an expert in your particular field. Identifying your goal will help keep your blog focused, as well as make it easier to develop new content.

2. Am I offering relevant content?
If you took the time to honestly answer the first question, then it shouldn’t take you long to answer this one, too. That’s because the content of your blog should be directly related to your blogging goals. If you want your blog to increase widget sales, start writing about the special features of your brand of widgets. Or maybe your blogging goal is to establish yourself as an expert in your given field, in which case you might want to share industry insights and useful advice. Because I aim to provide practical, real-world marketing for my clients, I always include at least one easy-to-implement marketing tip in my monthly e-newsletter, the Roughstock Roundup; there’s no reason why you can’t do the same thing in blog format.

In addition to ensuring your content is directly related to your blogging goals, your content must also be relevant to your readers. Avoid what I like to call Cute Kitty Syndrome by asking yourself if each blog entry will really be of interest to your readers. Posting the intimate details of your summer vacation, for example, can easily bore readers who are looking for content about your products or services, and make your business appear less useful to potential customers (unless, of course, you happen to be a travel agent).

3. What is my position?
Avoid trying to be all things to all readers. You’re competing with thousands of business blogs, and this is a great way to differentiate yourself from your online competitors. Show your readers why your company is different, both in the way you address them and the content you provide. One of the biggest mistakes I see business bloggers make is being afraid to have an opinion or a unique voice. Just as your personality inevitably informs how you do business, so should it inform how you communicate with your blog’s readers.

You should always remain professional, of course, but don’t be afraid to let your sense of humor show, or reveal your own unique approach to your industry. When I started my Bar Stories drinks blog, I was concerned that my slightly irreverent writing style might turn off my corporate clients. But when one of them contacted me directly to let me know how much fun they had reading it, I realized I wasn’t taking as big a risk as I’d feared.

4. Am I paying attention to my readers?
Just like a brick-and-mortar storefront, your blog provides a great opportunity to connect with new prospects. Unlike real life, however, where you can see with your own eyes how many customers are walking through your door, blogs require extra work to know if they’re getting the job done.

If you’re not paying attention to your readers—how often they’re visiting, what they’re reading, if they’re commenting—there’s a good chance that you’re shouting into an empty room. The best way to know what your readers think of your company blog (and by extension, your company) is to ask them—make sure comments are enabled and encourage readers to leave responses (that means replying to their comments, too). Take a poll every now and then, or hold a contest to increase interactivity.



But don’t stop there. Make sure you track your visitors (StatCounter and Google Analytics offer great services free of charge). Knowing where your visitors are coming from (other blogs, directory listings, internet searches, and so on) can provide excellent insight into what kind of content readers are looking for. Use this information to help make your writing more relevant to them.

5. Am I being consistent?
I can’t stress enough the importance of consistency when you’re blogging for business. You would never accept anything less than consistent excellence when providing face-to-face customer service, so why would you present an inconsistent image to your online readers? This doesn’t mean that you have to write only about widgets and nothing else (assuming that your company makes widgets, of course). It simply means that your overall tone and approach should remain recognizable, so returning readers know what to expect.

Your blog is, after all, an extension of your brand. As such, it should reinforce your real-world identity and offer visitors a familiar space to return to again and again.

6. Am I getting the results I want?
This is where we come full circle: don’t forget to ask yourself periodically whether you’re reaching your original goals or not. Knowing how to measure your success based on your initial blogging goals can be a challenge., and many businesses hire companies who understand the fickle nature of blog readership to help them create blogging plans from the get-go. With a little logical thinking and a decent dose of creativity, however, it’s not impossible to assess your blogging results on your own.

If you started blogging to build credibility, your search engine ranking is a great way to measure your success. Are other businesses, blogs, or organizations in your industry linking to you on a regular basis? If you’re low in the search engine results for keywords in your industry, or if others aren’t recognizing your blog as a valuable resource, you might need to rethink the content you’re providing to better achieve those results.

Click-through rates, conversion rates, entry and exit pages, and visitor length are additional statistics that can help you measure your success. Just make sure that you’re reviewing the statistics most appropriate to your goals, or you won’t get an accurate view.

When all is said and done, a business blog is a long-term commitment. You owe it to yourself and to your readers to continually assess the fruits of your labor and make adjustments when necessary. Going through the above questions on a periodic basis will ensure that your blog content stands out from the crowd, differentiating your business from your competitors.


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