I’ve Set Up My Blog, What's Next?

So you’ve set up your blog and you’re ready to get things started. You want to drive traffic back to your blog site to build up your business, but what do you need to do to get this started? Well, the two most important things you need to begin right away are writing and marketing.

When you begin writing your articles, make sure they are filled with meaningful content that is related to your business. If you go off track your audience will not be interested and Google does not look highly upon this (it’s looked at like a form of spam).
Always be yourself when writing your articles.

That is one of the most important factors to keep in mind as you are writing. Of course, your audience likes to learn something (facts) when they read your blog, but most people prefer a more personable approach. It makes them feel as if you are right there speaking to them in person and helps build up their trust. You want your readers to trust you so that they will continue to follow what you have to say and they may even refer your writings to other people!
Make sure you post a blog at least once a week.

You never want your blogs to be dormant. Once you start getting regular subscribers to your blog, they won’t remain loyal if you don’t post anything for long periods of time. Your audience becomes followers because they are interested in reading what you have to say. If write your first blog and do not write something again for a month, they may lose their interest. You may even want to think about writing a series of blogs to make your reader want more. A series of articles will more than likely make your readers want to return the next time you post something so they can continue with your “story.”

If you do not have time to post a blog one week, why not post a guest blog about a topic that is related to your business? Of course, you need to make sure you have permission to do this, but most bloggers do allow this as long as you include their name and their website information for copyright reasons. You can also find someone that is an expert in your business and contact them directly to see if they would like to write a new blog and be a guest blog on your site.

Now that you have come up with how you’re going to write your blogs next is getting traffic to your blog site. How do you do that? Well, marketing yourself and your business is the best way to get your name out there in the cyber world and the following are a few of the steps you can take to begin this:

• Tell all your friends and colleagues about your new blog site and ask them to sign in to read it and subscribe to your RSS feed.
• Email bloggers you may know and ask them to mention your new blog or even ask them if they could add your website to their blog roll.
• Post on your social networking sites (ie; Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that you have started a new blog.
• Comment on other blogs leaving your name and the URL to your website. Make sure your comments are thoughtful and informational. Make them interesting so that people will want to read more from you, click on your link and check your site out.

There are many other marketing steps you could use to drive traffic to your website, but these will definitely get you started since your blogs are new.

Happy blogging to all of you!

Do you have additional ideas on how to market a blog? Post them below!