How to get started in business blogging

By Bruce · Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Before you start putting up your business blog, remember that you have to outline your plan. First, you must define the purpose of the blog. Do you want more sales? Do you want to provide more value to existing customers? Are you trying to develop a referral system whereby allowing current customers to refer more business to you? Do you want people to find it easy to find you online?

After we decide exactly what we want to achieve with a blog, the next step is to find a domain name. Now you can go two ways with this. First, if you already have a domain name, you can add a blog to a different “directory” within that domain name. Secondly, you can put up your blog on a separate domain altogether. We suggest you put up the blog on a separate domain because it can “feed” traffic to your original “static” web page and therefore get points for higher search engine ranking or page rank.

Next, you need to plan out your layout of the blog. Blogs have several main features to think about. We have listed the basic features you need to be aware of:

header
post area
sidebar
search box
category box

Now this is not the complete list, but the basic list to be aware of when starting a blog from scratch.

Always remember that the “lifeblood” that drives the full function of a blog is content. By that, we mean that you need to consistently add post articles in the post area weekly. Every time you add content or make a change to the blog, such as adding an affiliate ad, you take advantage of the full potential of the power of the blog.

In our next post, we will share with you, several ideas to think about on how to make your blog effective at the start so you get a running head start at success.