Blog posts, articles, and random acquaintances are all telling you how much you need to be blogging for your small business. That sounds nice and all, but who has time to write regular blog posts? And if everyone else is doing it, why would anyone bother to read what you write?
When Blogging Isn’t Worth It…
The fact is, all those sources harping on the benefits of small business blogging aren’t wrong, but they’re not always telling the whole story. If you start a blog to start a blog, that’s just dumb. Blogging without a strategy is a huge waste of time and energy.
Even if you do somehow manage to put out posts once a week, getting it done isn’t enough. Unless your blog posts offer valuable information to the people you want to be reaching, and more importantly, actually get read by them, you’re not getting anything back for the work you put into it.
…And When It Is
If you’re going to start a blog for your small business, you want to do it right. Your posts need to be approached with a specific goal in mind. You need to ask yourself:
- What do I want to get out of the blog?
- Who do I want my posts to help?
- What do they need?
- How will the blog, and each individual post, represent my brand?
How to Find the Right Blogger
Your time is valuable and running a small business means you’ve got a lot on your plate. If you do want to branch into blogging for your small business, but don’t want to personally take on the time obligation, you need to find a good freelance blogger.
It might be tempting to head to one of those sites that offer a few hundred words for pocket change, but we’ve already established that this isn’t worth doing unless you’re going to do it right.
You want to work with someone that will take the time to get to know your brand (bonus points for prior expertise in your industry), knows how to write for the web, and understands the importance of appealing to your target audience.
A good freelance blogger will insist on:
- Understanding your small business blogging goals.
- Learning all about your business and products.
- Getting a clear picture of your target audience.
- Learning what kind of questions and issues concern them.
- Developing a blog strategy focused on providing value to your specific audience (e.g. prospective customers).
- Discussing some kind of strategy to promote the content and get it in front of the right people (although expect this part to cost more).
Basically, if you just want posts up so you can say you have a blog, go ahead and hire a content mill for $20 posts. If you want a blog that serves as an actual marketing tool, look for a freelance blogger with the chops and online marketing know how to push for everything described above.