A blog to a website is what jam is to a toast. This is especially true if you’re a small business or a digital content creator. A blog is an effective medium to help you stay connected to your audience and engage them.
In this article, I’ve put together 5 things you need to take care of when starting a new business blog. So, without further ado, let us begin!
The purpose of your blog
Kickstarting a blog might sound like an exciting idea. However, it is equally important to figure out the purpose, to know what needs to be done, and how it can be a successful venture.
Here are some reasons to have a blog:
- Forming a bond with your customers/audience
- Building a product understanding repository
- Growing your influencers and affiliates network
- Enabling customers with their business
- Being a trusted source for industry news
Once you’ve figured out the reason for starting a blog, you can start creating content and a marketing strategy. A blog that aligns with your brand values will help in boosting your new business.
Now that you’re clear why and what you want to cover in your new business blog, it is time to figure out what needs to be done.
5 things to kickstart your new business blog:
- Choose a domain name and blogging platform
The first step is to find which blogging platform is best to host your blog. Ideally, if you have a full-fledged website, all you need to do is either create a page or a sub-domain.
Take, for example, www.newbusinessname.com is your website then your blog subdomain can be blog.newbusinessname.com
Having your blog hosted on your website’s server as a subdomain has several advantages like:
- SEO benefits – it is easier to index and rank your pages on search engine
- Easy for customers to remember
- Subdomains are free (based on how many subdomains your hosting plan allows)
- Easy to align with your brand
- Easy to maintain
Note: Although you will host your blog as a subdomain, it will function as an independent entity, i.e. run on an entirely different CMS (Content Management System) than the one your website runs on.
There are several CMS options like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. However, WordPress is simple, easy to manage and powers over 43% of all websites across the globe. If you’re new, then WordPress can be a great beginner’s Content Management System.
- Branding your blog
Branding your blog and aligning it with your website is crucial to the success of your blog.
Branding includes the design of your blog right from font colour, logo, placement of the logo, background colour, social media links, etc.
For instance, make sure all your blog articles are uniform in terms of the same font style and font size. If you want to use featured images for blog posts, make sure you do for all blogs.
- Customise it
Now that you’ve set up and decided the branding of your new business blog, it is time to customize it to reflect your brand personality.
Here are the top 4 things you need to keep in mind when customizing your blog:
- Themes – Choose a theme that fits your business niche, is easy to edit, is light-weight and responsive, and SEO friendly.
If you have a WordPress blog, then here is a list of over 30 Best Responsive WordPress themes compiled by JustFreeThemes.
- Colour Scheme – As mentioned in branding, your blog colours should reflect your brand. To keep your website professional, make sure to not use too many colours. In fact, it is preferred to choose not more than 3 colours.
Confused about which colour scheme would go well with your new business blog, check out Colour Lovers to see which colours merge well together! - Header – Keep your header section neat and simple. Don’t add unnecessary tabs which wouldn’t have any articles listed under them. You can always create tabs later based on your content.
- Footer – To make sure your blog looks a part of your main website, try to keep the footer section the same as your main website.
- Install plugins
Plugins are a great way to add multiple functionalities to your blog without coding.
Some of the must-have plugins are:
- SEO plugin
- Contact form plugin
- Backup plugin
- Popular post plugin
- Social media plugin
- Start creating content
Your blog is ready to go live, and now all you need is content to keep it up and running.
As a business, it is totally up to you what type of content you want to publish. However, make sure that it helps your target audience. Lastly, make sure to follow the right marketing and SEO practices, avoid using complicated sentence structure and words, and always create quality content.
Conclusion:
A new business blog can present a lot of challenges and seem like an uphill task. Nevertheless, it is a good way to engage with your customers to build your brand and drive your business better.
I hope this article helps you create a successful blog. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to drop a comment below.
All the best.