In today’s content-driven world, starting a company blog on your business website is almost as necessary as budgeting for paid advertising.

Writing and maintaining a company blog is the base for all your other digital pursuits. It provides content for your company’s newsletter and social media accounts and can be a source for others to link to for attribution. This allows you to get your website in front of far more people than only those who are actively searching for your product or service out of necessity.

Blog posts help you stay in touch with all your stakeholders, from clients to potential customers to investors and beyond. A blog can help with this::

Bring more people to your website.

Give you content to share on social media.

Provide your customers with some extra value beyond your products or services.

Help establish you as a reputable leader and your company as experts in your field.

However, making the decision to start a company blog isn’t something you should take lightly. It involves, at a minimum, weekly attention if you want it to remain fresh and relevant. Once you start a blog, you cannot slack off, turn the blog into a section full of shallow content or make a lot of grammatical mistakes.

Blog-writing tips

While establishing a company blog requires a true commitment, it is also one of the most effective returns on investment, according to a recent ContentWritingJobs.com survey (https://bit.ly/3QRJEHb). Here are some things you need to consider in order to make a blog work to your organization’s advantage:

• Focus on readers, not on sales. A business blog should be reader-friendly and not contain a litany of sales pitches and marketing jargon. A blog should be entertaining and give the reader advice or be informative. This adds value to your website. You already have products and services pages designed to make sales; you can link to them in your blog. 

However, your blog should focus on helping your readers solve problems or provide them with amusing anecdotes to stimulate discussion.

• Make sure to set aside time each week to write. Unlike the rest of your website, which stays fairly static unless pricing or stock changes, a blog is something to be updated frequently. Preferably, you should post at least one blog a week or more if you have the time and topic ideas.

• Use proper grammar. Your blog posts reflect your company, so make sure you create a strict editing process in place to catch grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. A professional writer or an employee with good writing skills can help ensure that your blogs are sharp and error-free.

• Ensure blogs are consistent and creative. In addition to setting aside time to write for your blog, you also will need some time to create quality topics on issues within your industry or market. Plan a blog calendar you can follow throughout the year. This will take a bit of time to create on the front end, but once you have a calendar, you need to make time to follow it going forward. You can even ask other experts at your organization to contribute. 

It can be beneficial to include a technical blog post from time to time for your readers who are more acutely involved in your industry. However, most blog posts should appeal to general readers so your blog’s appeal will be more well-rounded.

• Use images. Think about the items you are drawn to on social media or when reading other company blogs. Chances are your eye gravitates toward those with the most interesting pictures or graphics. Get a subscription to an online image service such as Shutterstock and find engaging photos to accompany your blog, or take a lot of high-quality pictures of your products or your people performing a service. 

Remember that action images of people are the most engaging.

• Measure your blog’s search engine optimization. You can help make your case in favor of a company blog by measuring its performance. This also will help you determine what topics draw more readers and keep your company name near the top of search engine results. SEO can be tricky, so you will either need to read up on best practices or hire a professional to help you fine-tune your results.

• Hire a professional to assist. If you decide that a blog will benefit your company but you are too busy running your business to give blogging the attention it needs, do your homework and hire a professional content creator or public relations agency to help you create interesting topics and stick to a frequent blog-posting schedule.

Remember that the most effective company blogs have high-quality content, are updated frequently with fresh information, and are written clearly and grammatically correct.

However, what blogging does most for your company is help you build a relationship with your customers and potential customers. It helps you promote your company, build brand awareness and position you as a thought leader in your industry.

The biggest struggle is being engaging and consistent, but if you have a plan and a willingness to follow through, you will see an increase in your website traffic and audience engagement.