Blogs have been around in digital terms – forever – but are they still relevant? Is this something you should be doing? If so, how often?
We had this discussion internally within our small business earlier in the year when we were planning our 2020 marketing strategy. A few years ago, we started a blog, and as Website Designers & Developers, we knew the benefits it would have for our google ranking for our website. However, the realities of the time needed in creating a blog when trying to run a small business, meant the blog became less than a priority in a pretty short period.
Planning
So, when we began planning our 2020 Marketing Plan we addressed blogging as part of our digital media strategy and thought we would share with you the thought processes we went through as a small business of whether to blog or not to blog:
1 – Finding the time
As a small business, we tend to drop everything when it comes to working on the business, to focus on our customers, so tasks like blogging, tend to fall to the wayside.
2 – Being consistent
Any marketing – yes, blogging is marketing – needs to be consistent. And if you refer to point 1, if you don’t find (or make) the time you can’t be consistent.
3 – Being authentic
The pressure of finding the time and sticking to a schedule can often mean you are struggling for ideas and sometimes tend to put together something that is more forced and can mean you lose your authenticity.
4 – Having something valuable to add or offer
An opinion is not something we collectively as a team lack in; however, we need to ensure we can provide value to our readers.
Then we asked ourselves: with all these obstacles, was it worth our time and commitment? The answer was, Yes! As a busy small business, we decided yes we can make the time. We believe we have a voice that our customers look to for advice or news. So how are we going to tackle this?
Schedule
We put together a schedule of how often we would post blogs, who would contribute to them, and ultimately who would write them. We believe we have crafted a plan that is realistic to ensure we can meet our day to day commitments for our customers. But also offer them additional insight and value through the information and opinion we have on computer technology and digital media.
We also brainstormed a lot of ideas on what to blog about – most of them coming about from questions our customers ask us.
Advise from us to you
So what advice can we give you if you are struggling with an existing blog or thinking about taking the leap as a blogger?
- Consider the benefit to your customer base.
- Do you have something of value to offer your customers
- Will your website and Google rankings benefit from the SEO benefits
- Establish a plan and schedule that is achievable
- Make sure you have the discipline and drive
Bonus Level
Achieved for reaching the bottom of our blog <3
If you aren’t efficient on the keyboard (talking to all you two-finger typists) use voice to text – Google Chrome has a great plugin to use. Then all you have to do is email it to yourself, or one of your team members to then fine-tune.
Click the button below to find a Tutorial on Google Docs Voice-To-Text.
