The reason you write a business blog is to find new customers. People do a search for your niche or product, find your blog posts, and suddenly you’ve got new eyes on your pages. Unfortunately, the number of people who search directly for your niche is a finite group. But what about those who might be interested enough to come back if they only knew about your site in the first place? This secondary group of readers is huge, and they can find you if you put up blog posts about a variety of different topics.
Editorial Calendar
One way to guarantee you have a variety of blog topics is to fill out an editorial calendar at the beginning of each month. This is a listing of all the topics you’re going to cover, with a blog title set down on each day you’re going to post. When you look at the entire month’s topics, you can see where you have too much emphasis on one subject and where different ideas might give you an advantage.
Blog Topics
Of course your blog needs to be about your business, or it wouldn’t have any reason to be on your site. But you can connect almost any topic with any other topic if you get creative enough. For example, say you have a site that sells cell phones. Look on the news to find stories about natural disasters and write a post about having a charged phone on hand at all times for safety. Then write another post about the different types of phone chargers. Check a listing of holidays to find out what goofy holiday is being celebrated next week and tie it in with your niche.Taco day? Post about calling your friends to go out and celebrate. Camping week? Write about an app that shows you the stars. Connect the news of the day with your niche and you’ll get all new readers who are doing a search for the news.
Guest Posts
Readers love variety, and nothing adds variety more than to have more than one voice on a blog. Hire bloggers to do guest posts once or twice a month to switch up the flavor and to get some fresh ideas. Of course you’ll vet the prospective bloggers carefully, but a professional blogger can write in many voices and will research your site first to ensure that the new posts mesh with what you’ve already published. If you find a well-known blogger in your niche, ask them if they’d consider guest posting. His followers will automatically come see your site just to read what their favorite writer has done.
New eyes on your site are always good, and the best way to get this is to reach out to many different types of readers. Even if they aren’t specifically searching for your site, once they drop in they may be interested enough to come back again and again.
Victoria B is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
