How to Get Your Blog Started
Tony here & in this video we are going to be looking at how you can generate content for your blog. The reason for this is that when we mention to people that they need to start a blog then most people’s reaction tends to be either that they are not a writer or that they have nothing worthwhile to say.
In this video I would like to show you how to address these 2 items.
Before we do that, I just want to refer you back to our recent video interview with John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing, John, who is one of the world’s foremost experts on small business marketing. One of the most interesting points in his interview was when we asked him about people who are not sure whether social media or blogging is right for them & he said (rather bluntly) that if you don’t have a blog or you are not using social media for your business then you need to prepare to go out of business.
This is why I have done this video because I really want to get you up & running.
Not Sure How to Write A Blog?
Now, if someone tells me that they are not a writer then I would say why don’t you have a quick look in the sent items of your email. Take a look at the responses that you give to your clients. Your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are really useful & you could start with these.
Now if you can’t find too many a really good trick is to imagine that you are explaining your products or services to people who don’t understand the products or services that you offer. If it helps, picture someone you know in your mind – it could be a brother or sister or a parent, an aunt or uncle or even a grandparent. The reason that this works is that it forces you to break things down in to small, understandable chunks of information that this person will be able to understand.
As you perform this exercise, write them down & this can be the basis for some really informative blog posts. You don’t need to put it into one big post. You can break it down into smaller chunks & this will help you to create some really great content.
How to Get Ideas to Get Your Blog Started
Now, if you fall into the “I have nothing to write about, nothing newsworthy happens round here, I’m in an industry where nothing much happens round here” camp, then again, are you sure? Have a look out there at your competitors. Let me show you what I mean, because this provides you with a brilliant opportunity.
Let’s just go to google & let’s imagine that you are a printing company. Just type in “printing company blog”. Just type in whatever industry you are in, followed by blog & you’ll be taken to a load of relevant industry blogs. Now if you go through the list of websites & if you write down ten or a dozen of the subjects that each of these blogs is writing about then you’d have over one hundred ideas for blog posts.
Obviously I am not saying that you should copy people, but there is nothing wrong with using other people for ideas & for getting inspiration. Have a good look around. Look at the comments to see which ones people are most interested in. Which ones get most responses.
As I say, just doing this will give you a list of over 100 ideas to kick start your blog.
Another idea is to go & look at your suppliers’ blogs to see what they are writing about. Or maybe you could do some kind of industry news round up.
If you’ve set up something like Google Alerts then you could have a whole load of potential newsworthy items sitting there waiting for you to summarize into a nice succinct weekly or monthly news round up.
Ok, well I hope that is useful & don’t forget that with Pickaweb’s Hosting Plans we do offer a free WordPress plugin for you to use. You’ll find it in your control panel under the Softaculous icon & it auto installs but if you do need any help then our team of friendly technical support staff are there to help you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
I hope that you find this useful to help you to get your blog up & running and as always, we welcome your comments below.
