Creating a business blog on your website provides the perfect way to communicate directly with your customers. You can also attract new potential customers to your website, and it has tremendously positive benefit in search engine placement. So how do you get started on your business blog? Here are some important things to plan out:

Define Your Target Audience

Before getting started, it’s important to define as precisely as possible who your target audience is. Ask yourself these questions:

  1. Who are you writing your blog post for?
  2. What do you readers expect from your business blog?
  3. How do you readers typically digest information?
  4. How do you readers see themselves?

Put together a profile for your ideal reader. Find an actual individual and write directly to them. Don’t limit yourself, because you will reach beyond your target market as well. However by trying to appeal to too large of an audience, you end up capturing the attention of no one.

Your Business Blog’s Goal

Define clear goals for your business blog and make them a specific as possible. It might be to simply to inform your customers, or to create new traffic for your website. Although you may have only a few goals, pick one that is the most important to you. Write this goal down and make sure you have some way to measure, for example, how many new prospects you get per day. Keep the school flexible and modify it if you need to over time.

Brainstorm Categories

Start brainstorming the first 4 to 5 categories that you will be blogging about. Select specific areas within your niche that people might be interested in learning about. One category could be presenting your products and services, or displaying to customers how they could benefit from. Also take some time to view your blog the first few times before you actually launch it. Collect some of the common questions your customers are asking and answer them. You can turn these answers into posts that provide real value for your visitors.

Choose Your Keywords

It always helps to have some highly researched keywords to work into your blog post. You can use Google’s free AdWords tool for ideas if needed. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on keyword research for every post, just keeping list of keywords handy that are used for your business and integrate them naturally into your post.

Create a Schedule

Creating a blogging schedule can be extremely helpful. It doesn’t always matter how often you blog as long as you do it consistently. Try adding a new post each week, or at a minimum once per month. Monitor these results over time and adjust your schedule accordingly. Of course blogging at least a few times a week is typically going to be the best case scenario, as it also shows your visitors that you were highly active and it will keep coming back for more content.

It’s easy to set up a business blog and get it going — plus CyberOptik, a Chicago Blog Design company, is always here to help you along the way.  When you’re writing for it, always remember to try and engage your readers.  Encourage them to comment and take action.  Your blog is a two-way communication tool between you and your customers.