5 Blogging Tips for Your Small Business

To market your services successfully, you must establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Writing and publishing a blog is an easy way to showcase your expertise. Not only does a well-crafted blog demonstrate your knowledge, but it also helps build trust with potential clients.

How do you get started writing a successful blog? Follow these five tips to maximize its potential.

1. Keep Content Simple

A quick way to establish yourself as an expert in your field is to demonstrate your grasp of complex concepts by writing about them in a simple way that almost anyone can understand. This doesn’t mean you need to oversimplify your blog posts; rather, aim to make them more widely accessible. Bring your content to life by incorporating anecdotes, hypothetical situations, or other real-life stories that will resonate with your audience.

2. Write From the Heart

Imagine if this post just told you to work really hard and maintain a positive attitude. Would you take it seriously? Probably not. Along the same lines, make sure you’re not just rehashing the same general advice over and over. General advice won’t establish your expertise—you’ll end up sounding like a broken record. Instead, provide content of value that your audience can’t get anywhere else. That’s what will keep them coming back.

3. Connect With Your Readers

Say that you just read a really thought-provoking blog post and you have a few questions, but you can’t find a way to contact the author. Does this change your perception of the blog or the person who wrote it? The lack of ability to post comments on a blog or contact the author can be frustrating for readers. Show that you’re open to answering questions and responding to feedback by allowing comments or providing a way for readers to contact you. This will show that you value two-way communication and can even encourage questions and feedback.

4. Publish on a Regular Basis

What’s the worst thing you can do after starting a blog? Undoubtedly, publishing content filled with spelling and grammar errors can damage your credibility. A close second is writing a post or two and then abandoning your blogging efforts altogether. As an independent consultant, it’s important to show your commitment to following through on your projects. An abandoned blog can convey the opposite message. If you need to take a hiatus from posting, be sure to update your blog to reflect this change and avoid surprising or disappointing your readers.

5. Get Inspiration From Others

Being active within the blogging community of your industry of expertise is a great way to stay up to date on the latest news and trends and get ideas for your own content by seeing what other people are talking about and what sort of questions they are asking. Commenting on other blogs will help demonstrate your desire to interact with others online and will also help drive traffic back to your own blog.