You have a business blog, but it isn’t doing as much for your brand as expected. Is that a familiar story? Maybe it isn’t your content that’s the problem, but your schedule. Or, more accurately, maybe it is a lack of schedule that’s harming your business blog. Whatever business you’re in, follow this guide to decide how often to publish and learn what you can do to maximize your business blogging ROI.
Pick a frequency and stick with it
One of the most common mistakes with blogging is setting up a blog, writing a few articles out of the initial excitement of having a blog, and then forgetting about it. This is actually worse than not having a blog at all, as it makes your business look stale, outdated, and ignored. Remember that your blog is one of the front facing parts of your company, and web searchers will find that before they ever interact with your business directly. Your business blog is a first impression, and you know how important first impressions are in business, regardless of their accuracy.
Whether you established your blog years ago or are just starting out today, it is important to establish a regular cadence with your blog through a blog content schedule. Your schedule can be monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, or daily. There is no right or wrong as long as you are posting at least once per month. Any less than that and your websites stands a chance of looking dead in the eyes of both visitors and Google.
Whatever schedule you pick, stick with it. If you pick a schedule and find it is too much to maintain, change your schedule. You’re in control of how often you publish, just don’t forget about your blog and let it go stale.
Mix timely posts with evergreen content
When creating your content calendar, you can just pick the dates you want to publish, but you can go a step beyond and plan for topics and content types. Perhaps you want to include an evergreen post at least once per month and news style posts the rest of the month. Maybe you want to include an infographic every other month. One of the fun parts of blogging is the freedom for creativity. You may find yourself writing about your business one day and your community the next. There is no limit to what you can add to a blog post these days. It can include images, audio, or video. Anything that puts a personal face on your company is a good content marketing strategy in the current online marketing climate.
Remember that while your readers want consistency in publishing frequency and quality, they don’t necessarily want to read the same style of article again and again. Mix it up and give your audience fun, fresh business blog posts for the maximum engagement and impact.
Hire it out if you need help
Some business owners loathe writing and the last thing they want to do is run a blog. Lucky for you, there are people like me available to help you run your business blog and keep everything on schedule. In fact, most writers here at Due.com are freelancers who write for multiple business blogs. Business blogging is my primary income source.
If you want to hire writers on a budget, start with your own staff. You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that some members of your existing team are happy to write for your company blog. In a past full-time job as a financial analyst, I contributed a few blog posts to my company’s corporate blog to bring in fresh and unique perspectives even though I was not in the marketing department.
If you want to hire writers but don’t know where to start, you have a few good options.
- Discount marketplaces – Look to websites like Fiverr and UpWork to hire writers around the world. These are great places to find introductory level writers at a low cost. Just keep in mind you often get what you pay for. If you hire a writer in India to put together a blog post for $5, it may be riddled with grammatical errors and poor content.
- Writer job boards – The next step up is writing specific job boards like the Problogger Job Board or Contena. These boards are monitored by a mix of part-time and full-time writers, but tend to be of a higher caliber than you get from the big marketplaces. You’ll pay a little more, but you’ll get a lot better result in return.
- Professional writers – I find some gigs on job boards, but these days most of my writing comes through personal connections and professional job outlets like Contently. You’ll pay a premium for the best writers, but if your business is in a highly technical niche or you simply want the very best, a professional writer is the best path forward for your business blog.
Don’t feel obligated to spend thousands of dollars here. Just find the right mix of cost and quality that is the best fit for your business.
Turn your business blog into your biggest funnel
Your website is an opportunity to reach customers in your local area or anywhere in the world. Make sure to put your best foot forward with your business blog and keep it on a regular schedule with fun and interesting content. If you need help with the writing, don’t worry, there are plenty of writers available to fit your budget. Just don’t ignore your blog.
Turn it into a content marketing funnel that brings in new business, new opportunities, and new customers for years of business success.
