Perhaps we should ask “Why start a blog” before we get into the details of how to start a blog. There are many reasons to start a blog, for some it’s money–you can certainly make money with a successful blog if you’re willing to put in the work–but for most, blogging is enough of a reward in itself.
Blogging as a marketing tool
Sure, you can blog about anything but because I’m a marketing guy and because this is a marketing publication, let’s focus on blogging as a marketing tool.
For many brands, blogging is part of a greater marketing strategy like SEM/SEO (Search Engine Optimization), brand recognition or market penetration. For individuals and small companies, blogging is more about establishing yourself or your company as subject matter experts. This is an important part of any marketing campaign and blogging is a proven path to success.
Choosing a platform
There are a lot of platforms either dedicated to blogging or suitable for blogging–some free, some not so free. Free blogging is great because..well..it’s FREE. Free blogging is also incredibly easy to setup and if you decide to take your blog to the next level, there are tools that allow you to migrate your posts.
WordPress.com – is a free platform, used by over 60 million bloggers, based in the cloud and focused on blogging. It requires that you signup for a free account, after which you can choose a template and configure your blog. WordPress.com supports many powerful plugins to help you manage and improve your blog. If you should ever outgrow WordPress.com, talk to us about migrating to a self-hosted WordPress.org platform.
Blogger – is Google’s free blogging platform, most popular at the millennium, the designs are a bit elementary and dated but if you have a Gmail account it’s easy to get started.
Content, content, content
When preparing your blog posts, keep the content relevant to your customers–write about topics that will interest them. Try to use images and links in your posts that spotlight ideas and offer more detailed information for your more adventurous readers. The best case scenario is to point links back to supporting content on your website. Your blog posts can be as long or as short as they need to be to convey a particular idea or concept to your customers.
Happy blogging
Now that you’ve succeeded in configuring a blog, it’s time to start writing about the things that matter most to your customers. Believe me, they’ll thank you for it.
Next time – how to market your blog
If you would like to learn more about WordPress Marketing Automation, please contact me. 1.954.806.2188 steve@e2mktg.com