subject: What Goals Should You Set For Your Business Blog? [print this page] What Goals Should You Set For Your Business Blog?
Each year business owners should review their marketing goals and decide what needs to be changed for the following year. Many businesses are adding a business blog to their plan. If you are planning to add a business blog to your plan, make sure you have set some good goals.Why are you setting up a business blog? Is your goal to establish yourself as an expert in your field? Are you looking for more traffic to your website? Do you want a platform to share your opinions? Choose one or two primary goals and keep these goals in mind with each post to your blog.How often do you have time to post to your blog? One of the keys to success with a business blog is consistent posting. So many times I see a business start a blog with the intent of posting every day. It is like starting a diet the first of January. You are all ready and resolved to see it through for the entire year. Then as the month goes on, you lose sight of your original goal and "fall off the wagon." It is so easy to get distracted by the day-to-day running of your business that posting to your blog becomes a lower priority on your to-do list. Pick a schedule that you can stick with over time. A good goal is two times per week. If you have slow seasons where you can post more often, you can go ahead and write the post and then schedule it to be posted at a later date. (Make sure this is one of the features of the blogging platform you select.)Who is your audience? Are your writing to consumers or other businesses? Are you writing to your customers or prospects? What is the average age demographic of your audience? Are they male or female? What is their income level? Each audience will require a different spin on what you have to say in your blog. Yes you could have more than one audience reading your blog, however, you want to keep your primary audience in mind and address the blog to them. Write as if a person from your primary audience is sitting across from you at your favorite coffee spot and you are telling them a story or answering their questions.What is it you want to write about? With every niche there are a wide number of topics you can write about. If you are a financial planner, you could write about effective budgeting, review books, give tax tips, warn about scams or tell funny stories about how people handle their finances. If you are a restaurant, you could share recipes, interview frequent customers and tell about their lives, give kitchen tips and tricks. Think about how you could create a unique spin on your business and then build your blog around that niche.Once you have answered these questions, you will want to create a list of at least twenty post ideas. If you can't think of 20 ideas, then the scope of your blog may be too narrow. A great way to collect ideas for your blog post is to set up a Google Alert on the topic on which you wish to concentrate.
