Tips to Keep Your Business Blog Relevant and Fresh

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There may be no better way to increase your search engines rankings than publishing regular articles to your business blog. Publishing one or two short articles a week not only tells search engines that your website is an active website and should be indexed more often, but it also keeps your visitors engaged, which leads to mores sales.

blog-300x225Sometimes, however, coming up with something new and exciting to write about can be a challenge.

Thankfully, there are plenty of ideas you can use to keep your blog current, relevant and fresh. Here are just a few…

1) Turn on comments.

Comments are a great way for your customers to interact, and they often have different views and insights that they can bring to the table. It’s also good for your SEO, and letting your visitors add their comments is the easiest way there is to add new content.

2) Listen to your customers.

They have the best feedback because they are already interested in your product. Find out what they love about it and what they think needs to be improved, and then write about it. If there is a way to use your product that solves their problems, then post an article telling them how. Not only will you will make your current customers happy, but you will also build trust with your potential customers by showing that you are proactive about taking care of questions and concerns.

If your customers often ask “how do I”, consider writing a blog article answering those questions ahead of time. Not everyone is comfortable asking questions, especially if your product is of a personal nature, so consider answering those kinds of questions online so people don’t have to ask.

3) Keep a blog planning calendar.

This is probably a must-do for any blogger, and just takes a little practice to make it a habit. Try to plan your blog posts out at least one month ahead of time, but probably not much more than 3 months out. You will be glad you did this when you have one of those days, weeks or months where you just can’t think of anything interesting to write about, or during busy seasons when there isn’t enough time in the day to sit down and write a new post.

Shoot for at least one or two posts per week, but you really don’t need to do much more than that if time is an issue. Try to be consistent, and publish on the same days of the week each and every week.

If you are a NuggetWeb Merchant Shop owner, you can schedule your blog posts to be published at a later date in the Add/Edit Post screen of your dashboard (login required).

4) Read what your competition is writing about, and do it better!

Don’t plagiarize other people’s work, but use their ideas to write a more comprehensive article. Cover topics your competitions left out, and provide your own insight into the subject. You are an expert in your industry, after all, and you can do it better.

5) Use Social media.

Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are great sources of ideas, Check out your competition’s Facebook pages, and follow hashtags on Twitter that are related to your business to read what other people are talking about.

6) Showcase your customers.

Sometimes you’ll have a product that customers really love. Get an interview from them and find out what it is they love so much, how they use it, where they use it, what interested them in it to begin with, etc.

7) Showcase yourself and your employees.

Telling your customers more about you is a fast and easy way to build trust. People want to put a face behind what they are paying for, and the more you are willing to share with them, the more trust they will have in you and your business.

Just make sure you don’t over-do it and give too much information away, especially on the Internet. You can tell people about yourself, but you shouldn’t blog about things like where you live or where you take your children to school.

8) Invite guest bloggers.

Guest bloggers are good way to help build credibility. Contact other experts in your field, and ask them to write a short article for your blog. Be sure to give them plenty of advanced notice, and don’t be pushy. Also, be prepared if they don’t come through by having another article ready to publish in its place.

9) Stay focused on your business.

You shouldn’t treat your business blog like your personal Facebook page so, unless you’re in the animal business, try not to post an article about the latest trick your labradoodle learned. You can mix personal stories or advice into your blog posts to build trust and credibility, but keep your articles related to your business.

10) Make your posts timely to be included in search engines.

If your business is seasonal or holiday oriented, try to keep in mind that it can take a few weeks for search engines like Google to add your content to their search results.

Try to begin promoting the season 4 to 6 weeks ahead of time, so when people start searching the Internet during the busy season, you will already be indexed. If you wait until two weeks before a holiday to write a blog post about it, your new article probably won’t show up in search engines until after the holiday is over.

11) Don’t burn yourself out.

Most of your blog posts should be 300 to 500 words, but you don’t have to write all that much every time. If you can make your point in a brief article, that’s okay too. Just don’t do it every time.  You can also use filler, such as YouTube videos, event calendars or pictures to help extend the length of your posts.

Share your ideas about keeping your business blog relevant and fresh in the comments below or tell us on Facebook or Twitter!

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