To people who have never done it before, blogging can sound like a lot of fun – and, indeed, it often is. Also, blogging is hardly an activity limited to people who simply use it to fill people in on where they have recently been holidaying or what new breakfast cereals they have been sampling.
It’s perfectly possible for you to run a blog in a business capacity. So, what should you do to set up this blog and prime it for success?
Find a hosting provider
Your blog’s ‘host’ will basically be the company responsible for handling the behind-the-scenes technical side of keeping your blog operational. So, when a blog loads strangely slowly or even suffers an entire outage, the host can often be to blame.
Naturally, then, you want to find your blog a reputable host – and one especially big-name, reliable one is WordPress. This is why the platform forms the backbone of any content management system (CMS) we implement for a client.
Pick a niche for your blog
In just a few words at the most, what will your blog be about? This is your blog’s niche – something you must carefully think about in advance to prevent yourself from inadvertently selecting a topic you just don’t find interesting enough for long enough.
If the blog will form part of a business site you already own, your choice of niche could be practically a foregone conclusion. However, if the blog is intended to function pretty much independently, you could opt for a subject that tends to remain highly relevant – like housekeeping, travel or music.
Give your blog a great name
The trick here is to come up with a name that is succinct, distinct and memorable – three boxes that can be difficult to tick all at once. Perhaps you could just get straight to the point with your blog’s name while still giving it something of a twist.
Alternatively, you could go for a bit of humour, perhaps even a pun – since a title that would make people smile when they see it is likely to more easily stick in their minds, too.
Post engrossing content on a regular basis
Like a shop stocked with just a handful of products, a blog with only a few articles on it can struggle to muster much lasting interest. Hence, before you start making a serious effort to promote the blog, you should make sure it has built up a large and varied amount of content.
You don’t necessarily have to write all of the blog’s textual copy yourself, as you could hand this responsibility over to our team of digital copywriters instead.
Get talking about your blog on social media
Once you’ve gone to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to establish pages there under your blog’s name, you can use these pages to post regular updates about what’s happening on your blog. This promotional tactic can work especially well if you often blog about topical issues and their relevance to your area of expertise.