10 Simple Strategies for Business Blog Content

Are you sick of business blogging? Do you feel like your brain is empty and out of ideas for blog posts? This is a common feeling. (I know I, personally, have often felt this way.) The reality is that the web is full of too many great ideas and different types of content, that you should never run out of things to blog about, regardless of your industry. When it comes to blogging well and often, it usually comes down to how you see ideas and how well you explain them in a way that matters to your audience. It doesn't matter if you are blogging about manufacturing or swimming pools or any other industry for that matter, the basic process for coming up with great blog content can be applied to any business.

10 Ways to Keep Your Blog Full of Content

1. Answer Customer Questions -- After spending years in an industry, it is easy to use jargon and lose sight of how customers see the industry. A good way to solve this problem to create valuable blog content is by looking through your email or checking with your sales and support teams to generate a list of common customer questions. Take each question and write blog posts that clearly answer them without using industry jargon.



2. Aggregate Industry Information -- Everyone has good ideas. As a blogger, a great way to put together a powerful blog post is to compile popular industry statistics, images, videos, etc. into one article that makes it easily accessible for your readers. This saves them time spent researching and eliminates the need to visit dozens of sights. When aggregating content, be sure to give credit and link to the original source of information.

3. Think Beyond Text -- Text is great, but it doesn't have to be the only type of blog content you offer. Think about other types of content. For example, you could publish video or audio interviews of industry experts. You could create a blog post with pictures taken at an industry trade show. For a day, remove text as a possible form of blog post content and think about other content types that can be valuable to your readers.

4. Seek Out Guest Authors -- Let other people think of ideas for you. Think about other experts and leaders in your industry and approach them about contributing a guest article to your blog. You'll find that many people are willing to this for free in order to gain exposure to a new audience and generate a link or two back to their own blogs or websites. By securing a few good guest authors, you can outsource blog ideas and save some time in your schedule for other types of content.

5. Make Lists -- Coming up with new blog posts is often a function of framing ideas in the correct way. Think of common industry issues and situations in the form of lists. Lists can be how-to, best-of, etc., but often serve as a catalyst for coming up with a fresh angle for an common topic.

6. Make Charts -- People love data. Most businesses have data about their industry and use it to make important business decisions. While some data may need to be kept confidential, other data can be made into charts that can become a blog post, providing readers with valuable industry insight.

Example:

7. Think Like an OpEd Writer -- Take a stance. OpEd writers argue one side of an issue. No industry is without controversial topics. Pick a couple of hot-button topics and write an opinion article about the issue. Polarizing blog posts like this often attract more traffic and comments than traditional posts.

8. Look at Analytics -- Take a look at your website analytics.  Website analytics provide a lot of information about your readers. For example, you can see where they are geographically, what type of computer or smartphone they use, as well as other valuable data. If you notice that you have a large portion of visitors from an unexpected location, it might make sense to write a few blog posts related to industry issues in that geographic area.

9. Review Industry Books -- Provide your own twist on what others have to say about your industry. Read some recent industry books and then write or produce video reviews that point out the good and bad in each of those books as well as indicate which segments of your audience may enjoy reading them.

10. Break News -- Think like a reporter. Has an announcement recently happened that has an impact on your industry? Take a few minutes to summarize the news announcement and then explain what it means for your industry. Beyond helping your readers, breaking news regularly will help to improve organic search traffic, because search engines place value on the first sites to discuss a particular subject.

What tips do you have for keeping blog post ideas flowing? Which of these strategies do you use?

Photo Credit: qisur

Posted by Kipp Bodnar on Tue, Jun 01, 2010 @ 10:00 AM