I have been remiss in my blogging the last month. I am writing the post as reminder to myself on the why, the how and the what to blog about.
Learn Why Blogging and What to Blog About
When I meet with a client or potential client, the first they thing say to me relating to blogging is:
“I don’t want to blog. I don’t have anything to say that would interest others. I don’t have time to blog.”
I ask them the following questions:
- What are you interested in?
- What would interest your clients or potential clients?
- What do you want your clients or potential clients to know about your company?
- What do you want your clients to share with their friends (that are your potential client) about you?
Usually, they interrupt me during the last question and say “I understand the importance now and feel more inspired to write and share important information with others”. But, they chase that feedback with “I don’t have time”.
I then ask them these questions:
- You don’t need more clients?
- You don’t have 20 minutes to set down once every few days and write about something that is your passion? Your mission? After all it’s your business and you should know it better than anyone.
- You are satisfied with your current level of brand awareness via the social networking sites?
- You don’t’ need more visitors to your website?
- You don’t want to help your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rankings?
Blogging is FREE! If you already have a website and don’t have a blog on it, you can add a basic blog fairly inexpensively. The ROI (Return on Investment) you will get by adding a blog will pay off in the form of SEO, brand awareness, notoriety, etc…..
You can get a blog on http://blogger.com and http://wordpress.com for FREE, if you don’t have a website.
I do need to share with you that if you have a website, yes, you can still get a blog for FREE at the locations mentioned above, however, I have more questions for you to consider before doing that:
- Why are you blogging again? To drive visitors to your website. To share your wealth of information with clients or potential clients.
- Why would you want to do all the work of writing blog posts to increase your business, brand awareness, but drive the visitors to the FREE blog website to read your blog?
- Why wouldn’t you want them to visit your website, read your blog, then click on the other tabs on the website and learn more about your business and services? Maybe even contact you for an appointment or refer their friends (your potential client) to visit your blog.
Often times, it’s complicated and difficult for visitors to your blog on FREE blogging sites to locate the navigation to get your website to learn more about your business and your services. Remember, the purpose in blogging is to grow your business, not Blogger, WordPress, etc… or the advertisers on their FREE blog sites.
I hope you are inspired to reconsider: Why to blog? How to blog? and What to blog? When you need a kick in the seat of your pants on blogging come back and read this post. I’m inspired now, so off to write the guest post for another blog website. Guest blogging is another whole topic I’ll discuss at another time.
Please share your feedback, comments, suggestions below on Why you blog? and What results you have gotten from doing so?
Site visitors can read older content as well as newer content at any time. Blog Plugin
I completely agree that blogging is well worth the time spent and can be magical for growing a business. When I experience writer’s block, I do the following:
– Send out a tweet requesting a topic people would like me to cover (this usually puts me on the right track!)
– Visit other blogs in my niche to see if there’s a topic being discussed in which I can add to the conversation
– Comment on a recent event or news item that is relevant to my audience
– Pull an old article from the archives, update it, and add to it
I’m sincerely impressed by the clear and to the point nature to your post in general and to the questions you poise to a social media skeptic in particular, Lissa!
However, I think you may have (intentionally or unintentionally) not included the role a virtual assistant or some sort of social media support could play in this situation. Especially if time is an issue, in many to most cases it would presumably be cost effective for a social media newbie of a business to contract a professional to at least get them started and up to speed. Blogger and wordpress are free and pretty easy to use, but there is a steep trajectory of time needed to really “get it” fully, one based on the degree of social media understanding.
Then again, you do such a good job laying out why a business should commit wholeheartedly to a blog that your post might inherently promote such a fiduciary commitment anyways 🙂
[…] post: Why blog? and What to blog about? This entry was posted in Search Engine Optimization and tagged engine, search-engine, seo. […]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by LissaDuty: Just posted to my blog: Why blog? and What to blog about? http://lissa.app7.net/why-blog/ Feedback???…
Harry, I thought of that after I hadn’t written the post and forgot to add it! A virtual assistant, like myself #shamelesselfpromotion, can certainly help set up a blog, research blog content, write a draft to get the final author inspired (as everyone needs inspiration sometimes), or even ghost blog. I actually have ghost blogged myself, on and can on many topics, but usually I’ll usually defer to an expert. I do now some excellent ghost bloggers I can recommend for highly technical content.
Thanks for adding this important and key tip! Awesome!
Natalie, I love these suggestions and ideas for inspirtation! I am sure all the readers will too!
Lissa:
Why do I blog? Because it helps with my SERPs and helps me share my knowledge with a broader audience.
For me, I have a few reasons why I find it difficult to blog:
1. I don’t like my writing style (too many years in corporate America writing “do or die” letters to tenants – I’m still discovering my voice. When I grow up and become a Big Girl Blogger I’d like to have @ShellyKramer or @Katjaib style – that’s how I talk but I can’t get it into my blog posts (yet)
2. Time constraints! It’s definitely not for lack of ideas – I keep meaning to sit down for one weekend and just write out a ton of posts (actually when I do blog it tends to be on the weekend and then I just schedule them for my desired release date).
Things that give me inspiration for my blog posts:
1. Questions asked to me on Twitter
2. Cool things I find and want to share
3. Email questions from people
4. Dawn (@VAinParadise)
5. Things I spend time researching that I feel would be useful to others (learn from my time instead of on their own time)
If we make it a priority we can do it – I firmly believe we all have many things we can share and there are many more places for inspiration than what I listed above.
Michelle, thanks for your feedback and ideas. I don’t know who I would like to grow up and be like. I would feel complimented if I could get @shellykarmer to actually comment on one of my blog’s.
Every time I come to lissaduty.com you have another interesting article up. A friend of mine was telling me about this topic several weeks ago. I think I will e-mail my friend the url here and see what they say.
Thanks for your comment! I am glad you are enjoying me blog! Feel free to tell all your friends!
very good information you write it very clean. I’m very lucky to get this information from
you. Your site is very useful for me .I bookmarked your site!
I love these suggestions and ideas for inspirtation! I am sure all the readers will too!
nice share, good
article, very usefull for me…thank you cheap jordan shoes
Great sharing this. I bookmarked your site!
Very good information you write it very clean. I’m very lucky to get this information from you. Your site is very useful for me. I bookmarked your site!
It is exact
Thanks for your comment! I am glad you are enjoying me blog! Feel free to tell all your friends!
Super post, tienen que marcarlo en Digg
Truden
Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.
It is exact
Very good information you write it very clean. I’m very lucky to get this information from you. Your site is very useful for me. I bookmarked your site!
Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.
Great sharing this. I bookmarked your site!
I like your site! This is my page
Great sharing this. I bookmarked your site!
Super post, tienen que marcarlo en Digg
Truden
Lissa, Great post! I will come back and read this from time to time!
I do get lazy sometimes and don’t feel like blogging. Some days it’s real easy to just say forget it. You bring up alot of really good points.
Thanks for the great post! Joseph McDevitt
nice share, good article, very usefull for me…thanks
This is easier and surely gives comfort to internet users. Thanks for sharing. Post like this offers fantasticadvantage.
Thank you!
Nice post…Thank you for sharing some good things!!
This is a superb post Why blog? and What to blog about?.
But I was wondering how do I suscribe to the RSS feed?
it would had saved me a lot of headaches. Great post for guiding beginners. Thanks for sharing!
http://lissa.app7.net/feed/ is how to subscribe to the RSS feed
Nice post…Thank you for sharing some good things!!
I loved your post.Much thanks again.
I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
[…] 2. Writing content to share on your blog. Ask your connections what they would like to learn about your industry. Questions people ask often turn into some really great blog posts! Share client success stories. Get your readers interested in reading and learning more about you. (Read more about blogging.) […]