Previously we blogged about the benefits of starting a company blog for your business [link] and now we are going to tell you how to get started. With these 7 tips you’ll be blogging in no time and getting the word out there about you and your business:

1.     Get technical:  First things first, you need the technology. Most businesses have a dedicated website – you may have had yours custom made in which case you should speak to your web designers about implementing a blog function. Many websites for SMEs are WordPress based which means the functionality is already there (just click new post and voila you’re at the blog creation screen). If you haven’t got a website, then it’s time to get started. You can start off with a simple, free WordPress site. The beauty of WordPress is that when your blog/website is ready to expand you are able to buy the domain cheaply and you can customise your site to suit your brand as well.

2.     Make a decision:  Before you even start to worry about content you need to decide how often you’re going to blog. Consistency with blogging is everything. Much like podcasts you will get people who subscribe to your blog and people like to have a regular feed of info. The amount you do is totally up to you and depends on the time you have available. Some companies go for weekly, some daily and some have more than one a day. We would recommend that the longest period between blogs should be a fortnight.

3.     Experiment: The blog is the thing. It needs to look good and it’s worth experimenting within the edit section of the blog to find out what does what. With WordPress there is the option to see the HTML version of the post and this is often useful when it comes to formatting.

4.     What to write: In our previous blog we discussed some of the ways a blog can be used [link] and these ideas are a springboard for your blog posts. Use questions that current customers ask you as a title and the post as your answer or create guides and tips for your customers. Always remember that you want to be providing people with high-value content, which means you need to be giving them something that they find useful.

5.     Link up: Once you’ve written your piece go through it and find where you could be putting in hyper-links. You’ve probably mentioned your company name so link to your home page. You’ve probably talked about a product or service that you offer so link to that page on your site. Maybe you offered expert opinion on something in the news, link to that news story. Ideally you should have 2-3 links within a post, more than that and it’s overloaded.

6.     Spice it up: What else could you do with this post? Well, firstly it’s always good to have an article image. You may have your own photos but if you’re struggling to provide your own media visit http://compfight.com/ and select images with creative commons license. You can then use these images in your blog post. Have a quick look on YouTube; are there any interesting videos that work with your blog which you could embed into the post? Could you make your own video? Having multimedia within a blog is always a plus because again it gives your reader something more that is of value to them.

7.     Shout about it: Having this great, fresh, consistent content is all well and good but you need to make sure that your customers know you’re doing it. You may have an email base that you send a newsletter to and could announce the start of the blog on there.  A much more effective approach would be through social media channels. Use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to let people know a new post has been published. Not only do you let your current fans and followers know what happening but they will engage with the content and share it to their connections which could grow your online presence and ultimately result in new business for you.

By Harriet Thacker