Who should write your blog?

Posted on July 11th, 2007 in Getting started, Writing posts by Karen Bryan

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The first thing to consider is whether your blog should be written by someone in your company or if you will secure the services of a writer. I didn’t consider hiring someone to write the blog for my travel business. I wanted there to be continuity in style and content between my website and blog. It really depends on the business you have and if you feel confident about writing yourself. If you find a writer who has experience in your industry and as a blogger, they may well be able to produce a more effective blog and the writer’s fees could be a good investment. However I do think it makes the blog more authentic if it’s written by someone who has direct experience of working in your organisation. A good blog is not all about spin and perfect presentation.  Readers will see straight through that and there will be nothing compelling to make them come back a blog written by a somewhat distant third party.

If you make the decision to author your blog in-house, who is going to do the writing? For me this wasn’t an issue, as I don’t have partners or employees. I sometimes think it would be great for my blog to have several authors because then I’d only have to write a post a few times a month, the load could be spread. I think multi authoring could also make the blog more interesting for readers as they get variety of writing styles and perspectives. I have regular guest interviews and guest post to add some fresh content to my blog.

The downside is that the blog may lack coherence and focus if there are several writers. I wouldn’t advise trying to force participation in writing for the blog. as it’s better to have a fewer enthusiastically written posts than more insepid, disinterested posts. If several people in your organisation spend time researching and writing for the blog you could experience a loss of productivity which would have to compensated for by a increase in revenue brought about by the blog.

There is not a definitive answer to “Who should write your blog?”. You have to look at your own business and how you can best achieve the aim of your blog.

For me it was a relatively simple decision to write the blog myself because I enjoy writing posts and have experience in writing destination guides and articles for my travel business. My business is very much a reflection of my personal preference to get off the beaten track and see more of the real Europe.

What’s your opinion?

Top ten ways to improve your business blog

Posted on July 5th, 2007 in Additional revenue, Getting started, Marketing your blog, Useful resources, Writing posts by Karen Bryan

With the benefit of hindsight and experience blogging for my business, here’s my list of 10 ways to improve your business blog. You have to bear in my mind that I author a travel blog as part of my main website. The blog is self hosted using the Wordpress publishing platform. However I reckon that many of the tips will be relevant and help you boost your business with a blog.

1 Start the blog now. If you have already started focus on how to improve your blog. I wish I’d started my travel blog earlier. I was prompted to start blogging for my business by an email from a business studies student researching for a disseration about travel business blogs.

2 Make it easy for readers to subscribe, have an obvious suscribe button. You want to build up a core of regular, loyal readers. For the first few months of my blog the only way to subscribe was to click on text under a post. I also recently added a Wordpress plugin where a “Welcome and would you like to subscribe?” message appears on the first two blog visits.

3 Add Technorati tags to your posts. Make it easy for Technorati, the main blog search and rating engine, to find your posts by using these topic labels. I use Simple Tags plugin to do this.

4 Use more photos. A photo of a destination on my travel blog conveys a lot more than a well written description. It makes the post look more appealing then screeds of text. While that my be true for my travel blog, I don’t think adding loads of photos in this blog is relevant.

5 Add the 3 most recent blog headlines to your website home page with Buzzboost. Visitors to you home page can see that you have a blog and what sort of topics you are blogging about. You want to publise your blog as much a possible.

6 Analyse your stats more thoroughly, Feedburner is good for this. See which posts are popular so you can evaluate which topics and styles of posts appeal to readers and replicate this winning formula whilst still being fresh.

7 Submit to social networking sites. So far the most useful for me has been Stumbleupon.

8 Install Google Adsense. The blog is one of the top earners of Adsense revenue on my travel website.

9 Use the facility to set a future publishing date for posts to avoid bunching of posts. Some days I have the time and inspiration to write several entries and then nothing for a few days. As soon as you have an idea for a blog post, scribble down that idea on a list. Otherwise that idea may just slip your mind and in few days you’ll be racking your brain wondered what on earth to blog about.

10 Be more focused in your posts. Think are you satisfying readers and promoting the business as much as possible when planning and writing a post?

Please let me know if you have found any of the tips useful or if you have any that you think I should add.

[tags]business blogs, Technorati., Google Adsense, Feedburner, Stumbleupon, Wordpress plugins[/tags]

Publicise your blog on your website

Posted on June 26th, 2007 in Getting started, Marketing your blog by Karen Bryan

I find that having the titles, date and the first line of my 3 most recent blog posts on the home page of my travel website is really good way to publicise my blog. It means that any visitors to my website notice that the site has a blog and they can click on a post title to read the full post. Feedburner.com offer BuzzBoost free on their site. I just needed to insert some html code into my home page.

[tags]Feedburner, Buzzboost, blog marketing, business blogs[/tags]

Burn your feed: Make it easy to subscribe to your blog

Posted on June 26th, 2007 in Getting started, Marketing your blog by Karen Bryan

I only recently discovered Feedburner.com for my travel blog. It’s a great way to make is easy for readers to subscribe to have your blog posts (feed) delivered to their computer. You just need to install the subscribe button on the side margin of your blog and then the reader can choose how the wish to subscribe to your feed.

Until the subscribe button was installed, readers of my travel blog could only subscribe by clicking on the subscribe text in all the other text at the botton of a post. I wasn’t exactly making it easy for readers to subscribe! It’s reasons like this that made me start this blog, so I can help other business bloggers boost their business more quickly by doing the right thing more quickly. Things like burning your feed and installing a subscribe button may only take a few minutes but deliver results.

You want to do everything that you can to encourage readers to subscribe to your feed so that become hooked on your blog and want to read it regularly.

[tags]Feedburner, blog subscription, blog feed, RSS[/tags]

Using resources to create and maintain a great blog

Posted on June 26th, 2007 in Getting started, Useful resources by Karen Bryan

If you want to get the best tips and advice for your business blog try to refer to as many sources as possible. I’m not setting myself up as the know all of business blogging, just hopefully one useful resource amongst many. I don’t have much technical knowledge so can’t offer advice on that side of blogging.

I’ve compiled my top 3 blogs and top 3 books to help you boost your business with a blog. You can also read other successful blogs and converse with other bloggers.

Spend some time doing research for your blog, so can master the basics but then you just have to grasp the nettle and start blogging.

Try to keep your blog unique to you and your business. Yes you can learn a lot from other sources but for your blog to be maximise it’s potential it has to offer readers something a bit different and special to make them actively want to keep reading you blog as supposed to the other millions of blogs out there.

[tags]blogging resources, business blogs[/tags]

The aim of your blog

Posted on June 21st, 2007 in Getting started by Karen Bryan

What do you want your blog to do for you? Think about this. It’s not enough to say everyone has a blog so I need one to or I’ve heard they’re good for business so I better get blogging.

It’s often said in business that more attention should be given to retaining existing customers instead of concentrating on finding new customers. A blog could be a way of building customer loyalty. If customers read your blog and find it interesting and informative, then when they come to make a purchase hopefully your business will be their first stop. If previous customers read my blog about travel in Europe, then next time they are planning a holiday, they will visit my site and make a booking.

If a blog introduces you to a wider pool of potential customers then you should achieve an increase in sales.

It may be a good idea to write down the aims of yor blog and refer to this whenever you are making decisions about your blog to check that these decisions are likely to lead toward achieving the aims of your blog.

[tags]business blogs[/tags]

What a blog can and can’t do for your business

Posted on June 20th, 2007 in Getting started by Karen Bryan

I chose my title carefully using “can” rather than “will” do. While a business blog can boost your business, you shouldn’t think that if you just set up a blog it’s an easy, quick payback. You have to be prepared to spend time researching and writing entries and publicising the blog. If you think carefully about the aim and focus of your blog before you start and are prepared to write regular, relevant, interesting posts and work get your blog noticed, you should start to see an increase in turnover within several months.

If your product or service is low quality and out of date, having a blog is not going to save the day.

[tags]business blogs[/tags]

Why I started my blog

Posted on June 20th, 2007 in Getting started by Karen Bryan

I started a blog for my travel business after I received an email from a student doing research about blogs in travel businesses for her disseration. I was surprised that a travel business would have a blog. I’d vaguely heard of blogs but I thought that travel blogs were online diaries for long term travellers, a way of keeping friends and family up to date with your travel adventures. I did some reading and it all extolled the benefits of business blogs.

I was very fortunate to receive that email to trigger my blast off into the blogosphere. I didn’t want you to leave it up to chance to reap the benefits of blogging for your business.