As Internet and social media marketing have become critical aspects successful business operations, it is not surprising that business blogging is being spotlighted by almost every type and size of business. But despite its popularity, many professionals and business owners are unsure of where to start, what to write, and how to business blog in general. The following are a few tips you can use to help you write informative, effective, and interesting blogs for your business's website.
First, let me begin by stating that the grammar and essay writing rules you learn in English 101 still very much apply to business blogs. Thus, some of these tips will sound like the things you've heard in High School or College English courses.
1. Target Your Audience - Before you even begin writing, take a moment to brainstorm your audience, i.e. the people who are going to be reading your business blog. Ask yourself, who am I targeting with this blog post? Am I targeting existing clients? Personnel? Or perhaps you are targeting potential customers?
Once you have decided who your target audience is, keep that audience in your mind at all times when writing. They will be the ones reading your business blog. Therefore, speak in a tone that appeals to your audience.
For example, if you are writing a blog about website development and your audience is business owners looking to hire a web development company. It wouldn't make sense to use exceedingly technical vocabulary, as your audience will not understand what you are trying to say.
Another fundamental aspect of targeting an audience is to choose an appropriate topic. Ask yourself: what does my target audience want to read about? Am I trying to inform or merely entertain my target audience? The best business bloggers can seamlessly combine both informative and entrainment value into their blogs. This takes time, practice, and an innate sense of writing and language comprehension.
2. English 101- The easiest way to lose trust with your audience is to write a blog with numerous grammatical mistakes, typos, spelling errors, and poor editing in general. After you have finished writing your business blog, read the blog out
loud. This is a great way to find any writing mistakes, oddly
constructed sentences, and other general editing mistakes.
Also, the topics of your business blogs topics should reflect your business!
The main goal of business blogging is to build ethos, logos, and pathos. With these three persuasive tactics, your target audience will find that your ideas are valid, dependable, and worthy or his or her's time to read your blog.
- Ethos - refers to the writer's credibility and trustworthiness. We tend to trust people whom we respect. To establish ethos with your readers, it is vital that you establish yourself as an authority on the subject, as someone worth listening to, and as someone who is likable and worthy of respect.
- Logos- refers to the logical reasoning and the effectiveness of supportive claims to any topic/argument. To establish a logical appeal with your audience while business blogging, it is important to research and follow up any stated claim with logical evidence. To do this in a business blog, linking to credible websites are a great way to build logos. Including links as citations are also a great way to build SEO (search engine optimization).
- Pathos- refers to appealing to your reader's emotions. By using this widely known marketing strategy, pathos can be used to enhance the effectiveness of your blog. When you connect with your reader on a personal level, you establish a relationship and thereby gain your reader's trust. To incorporate the pathos technique into your business blogs, try using your own personal experiences, motivational appeals, vivid and emotional language, and sensory details. In this way, your readers will feel an emotional connection and bond to you and your words, thereby boosting your trustworthiness as a business blogger.
To read more about rhetorical strategies of persuasion, check out the following links:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/04/
http://www.public.asu.edu/~macalla/logosethospathos.html
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~camatteo/TOUR/logos-ethos-pathos_040307.pdf
3. Post Frequently - This concept is self-explanatory. The more often you post, the more potential followers you will gain. Posting frequently also shows dedication to your business blog and further establishes your ethos and trustworthiness. Also, updating the content of your company's website on a regular basis is a great way to boost SEO, as Google and other search engines consider this factor in their page rankings.
The three points that I have just outlined will give you a leg up on how to write effective, interesting, and successful business blogs. Don't forget that blogging for any size and type of business is critical within the current online trends. Blogging is one of the best ways to keep your website content current, establish a rapport with your clients/customers, increase your business website's SEO, and much more.
Be sure to check out our cache of Hudson Horizons' Blog posts for examples and for great information about online marketing, SEO, website design, social media marketing, and more.