The Absolute Beginner’s Guide on How to Start a Successful Blog: Blogging For Startups
We talked to you about blogs and how to set up one properly, but sometimes blogging isn’t your primary plan- you may just do it for fun or actually need one. Today, we’ll talk about why startups need to blog. Why, what, where, how, when and who- all will be answered. So lets start.
Why and what?
One of the first questions is always: why? Why you should blog if you have a perfectly good site that explains it all. Sometimes, you want to write something, or your audience wants to know something, or you just want to exchange ideas with people in the industry, but that doesn’t always fall within the concept of your site.
So having a separate blog is an excellent idea. Today it is important to have a two way communication, and blogging is one of the most grateful ones. It is the best way to announce changes and show your transparency and authenticity. You’ll seem like an accessible person that can be asked anything through comments, and not some corporate identity.
So you know why you should blog, but what about? If you are a startup, that is exactly what you write about. Don’t offer advice from the start, especially if you are a new entrepreneur. Instead, talk about your experiences and industry. Spread your niche a bit but stay on topic, meaning, if you are startup that is aimed at finances, stay in finances. However, if you find a unique way to connect for example software with finances, you will have a unique edge over similar blogs. Be helpful, and if you don’t know if you’ll have enough topics to blog about, try to break down one idea to more smaller sized article. But don’t forget that you are blogging for a community, blogging sometimes lures people to get too informal and that can be seen as an immature approach to startup.
Where and How?
Where to place your blog? If your startup lives off the high traffic on your site, put the blog there. If it is not necessary, you could put it somewhere else. It could give you the freedom to express your thoughts separately from your partners’. Although probably all of you are like-minded, not everybody has the same views. This can be crucial if point of your blog is to share ideas. Usually the posts with highest traffic are those that you are most passionate about, and not all of them are for the startup site. In most cases, having a separate audience on your blog will drive traffic to your startup, not from it.
As we mentioned before, passionate posts can be the most viewed. Sometimes that is not the case, but in the end, the goal is to be authentic. Don’t try to please everybody because you will ultimately fail at it. The question how to blog is up to you and your personality, but ultimately don’t be arrogant or offensive. Perfection should be avoided too and don’t try to force funny. Don’t blow all of your main and big ideas in the first few posts, build up slowly and organically. Be consistent, and remember that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. And after you create an excellent blog post, don’t forget to market it.
When and Who?
But how to be consistent? How often should I update it? When to publish the post? Well, that is up to you and your schedule. However, try to publish posts in times when there is more traffic. If that time doesn’t suit you, make some space to write your post the day before and have a time set to publish it in the future. On many occasions, bloggers, especially beginners, forget about this feature.
Plan ahead what will you write about, try to come up with more than one topic. Figure out your writing process (how long does it take you to write it, re-read it, correct it, add links etc.) and you will soon be able to write posts faster without any loss of quality. Sometimes, it is not about when you will publish post, but how many and if you are about to make some changes in schedule, announce them.
We mentioned that that blog can be an excellent means for a two way communication. Don’t forget who you are blogging for, and don’t forget about the comments and answering them, they can also drive your inspiration. Perhaps your next post blog is hiding there somewhere. It is the best way to build your community and feedback can be priceless. Just remember how frustraing it can be when you ask a question on somebody else’s blog and they don’t respond you, ever.
If you are a startup, there is no reason not to set up a blog. The only question is when are you starting your blog?
