There’s a fine line between having a fun and interesting blog and having an informative blog. Too much interesting content without information, and you’ll never meet your goals with your blog. Too great a focus on information, and, well… you aren’t going to have a readership.
But, I believe that it’s possible to combine the two. Creating an informative business blog that is still interesting is definitely one of the more challenging aspects of content marketing, but here are 7 tips to help you do the job:
Tip #1: Be Specific: General is Bad
The more specific your business blog is, the better. That doesn’t mean you should feel limited to just one topic, but you should have an ideal reader in mind that you consider in light of every piece you publish.
It’s okay to focus on niche markets (like the food industry or the real estate industry, etc.), but for the most part, focus on delivering content marketing advice for all types of small businesses.
My point? It’s okay to be ultra-specific from time to time, but you should never be ultra-general.
Tip #2: Personal And In-House Content
No matter what kind of business you run, there’s about a 99.99% chance that someone else is doing nearly the exact same thing. However, you’re still unique because of the people behind your business.
A great way to be informative and interesting is to share in-house content about your business. Celebrate your company’s successes with your business blog by sharing case studies, milestones, and more. It’s a great way to educate readers about what you do, while also offering something they can’t get anywhere else.
Tip #3: Solve Customer Problems
You know what people love? Having their problems solved. Businesses exist because they create solutions. Why not do that with your blog? This is one of the best ways to provide information. And, if someone’s reading your blog, chances are it’s because you have the answers they need. Take a customer’s real problem, solve it, then share about it.
Tip #4: Interview, Interview, Interview!
What’s better than sharing your own knowledge? Sharing knowledge from someone who is smarter or more experienced than you. Start asking to interview the experts in your industry. I bet you’ll be surprised by how easy it actually is. Everyone wants exposure, right? Plus, once you interview a big name, it opens up many more doors of opportunity.
If you ask someone for permission to interview them for your blog, more often than not, they’ll say yes. It makes the interviewee look good; it makes you appear well connected; it provides valuable information to the reader; everyone wins.
Tip #5: It’s Not All About You
I know, crazy, right?! I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you are not creating the bulk of your industry’s content. That being the case, it’s time you start sharing the best of the best – even if it means sharing a competitor’s content.
When you share other people’s informative content, not only does it strengthen your reputation, but readers will welcome it. After all, they’re coming to your blog to get information, not to listen to you jabbering on from your soapbox. And you never know what sort of networking opportunities open up when you openly share the good of your competitors.
Tip #6: Are You Interested?
This should go without saying, but you’d be surprised how often it happens. If you aren’t interested in the content you’re sharing, no way are your readers going to be interested.
Tip #7: Judge Yourself on Interaction
How is your blog doing with traffic? Comments? Re-tweets? If the answer is “so-so,” then your business blog probably isn’t informative – or you’re just having some serious SEO issues. Generally though, interaction is a good indicator of whether or not your blog is informative.
Start implementing these tips to make your content beam with knowledge and tell us, how do you make your business blog informative?
I agree completely with Tip # 1, in that it is (at times) very important to be ultra specific. Sometimes you need to carve out your own niche within a niche market so you have a better chance of standing out in the crowd. Plus, having specificity with your blog helps you better position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Wayne Liew
Exactly Nick. This is especially so in the technology niche. We see new tech blogs these days trying to cover everything from gadgets and web apps to SEO and social media.
Many businesses would do well to take the top 10 most frequently asked questions (you know, the ones you could give the answer to in your sleep while juggling) and make a specific blog post out of each one. Give examples through relating detailed stories about when the answer to that question has been vital to a customer experience. Get some actual pictures if possible. That way the answer will not only be 100% related to your unique business, but more personal as well.
Great post, Amie ! I agree, it’s “not all about you” & yet a blog is better when it’s content is personal. Meaning it shares personal views, opinions & basically has found it’s own voice. Otherwise we’re back at tip 1 where it gets too general & bland. Would you agree?
Amie Marse
Absolutely 🙂 The level and kind of personal anecdotes should be dictated by the audience or established voice. With our company blog for example, I urge all of the writers to be over the top personable. I encourage them to mention other team members and highlight personal anecdotes. Those little tidbits are great for our current clients and have come up more than once when I talk to potential leads. Of course, if we were running a high end finance blog we would curtail that somewhat. So again, it’s based on your audience but you can absolutely be informative and personal.
Sally
I would also like to add that in addition to content and targeted information, it’s vital that you pay attention to grammar and style. Credibility is seriously diminished when a blog (or any written piece) is loaded with typos, no matter how good the info. Know the basics: its/it’s; which/that; your/you’re etc. Also, adverbs used as adjectives are not hyphenated (newly established position); one space after a period not two; avoid the passive voice.
Martin Lindeskog
The first question to answer, why should we have a blog? Have we found our natural business voice? To follow Amber Mac’s ABC rule in Power Friending:
Be Authentic, Brave and Consistent.
Amie: I will show these 7 tips to some of my business contacts and come back to you in the near future.
Charleen Larson
Thanks for this list. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Making it personal… Well, I impose my values on the blog. I won’t endorse anything unethical or harmful to others even though I’m in a niche where there are a lot of get-rich-quick schemes.
To me the most important thing is to solve customer problems, as you say, people love having their problems solved and if anyone writes something or asks something through your blog, go back to them as soon as possible and that will make them feel important and valued. Thank you for the tips!
Ron Jacobs
Great information. I believe that Tip 6 can be the key to keeping your readers interested. If you don’t have an interest in the topic that you are writing about it will most definitely show through in your writing.
Keeping topics more personal can help to keep blogs from becoming “stuffy and marketing-oriented” as another comment put it.
Deepak.A
Cool stuff amie! It was really fun to learn this and informative too.. I have a doubt, should we always be conscious of keeping the grammar absolutely correct?? I guess my question was ULTRA – SPECIFIC 🙂 Kindly clarify me amie …
Amie Marse
That depends…do your clients depend on you to be detail oriented? If details matter to your product or service, then they should matter in your writing.
Sally
I was looking at a travel agency’s website today. “It’s” was used in place of “its” three times within its pages, including the associated blog. It was a real turn-off and very unprofessional.
I love this post, we try hard to focus on #3. There are several problems our customers come across when using our products. We go over the recurring problems in weekly meetings, then try and address them on our blog or video blog. Interviewing is something we need to work on, it is a great informative way to add content from another professional’s perspective.
Triveni neelamsetti
Very useful information Amie…great work…i want to go with your tip #2…we have just initiated the business we don’t have such great case studies to include..but this backdrop of our business should not take away our customers from us….we want to attract customers though being freshers in the market….what inhouse content should we need to publish???? awaiting for ur reply 🙂
Amie Marse
Great question!
Since so much of our business is “ghostwriting” (thank goodness this trend is starting to change) we have very few clients that claim us. Which means we don’t have a lot of references even though we have hundreds of clients. So even though we’ve been around for 2 years, we are dealing with the same issue as a brand new company like yours.
Here’s what I suggest:
~ Create middle stage content that showcases your knowledge within your industry. This is going to be guides or white papers that demonstrate your knowledge and include information unique to your company.
~ Leverage the lessons/case studies of famous brands even if they aren’t related to you. For example, we’ve done a lot of case studies on our blog for companies like Ford, Nike, Amazon, etc. We don’t work with those companies but that doesn’t mean our audience can’t learn from them. And you never know, the people at GM jumped on a post we did and we’ve since built a great connection with their social media team.
~ Leverage your research for future work. Sometimes we do a post or two about smaller companies or people we see doing things 80% right. This is a great way to give some link love to a growing company. Push it through social media and use that as a way to get a conversation going. We’ve landed numerous clients by showcasing them on our blog.
I hope that helps!
Krest
Thanks a lot Amie, for this very valuable and important information. Many bloggers do sin while writing for themselves and not for their readers. It is a kind of small switch you must turn on.
Imran shahid
I think that the success of a blog also depends upon the reply that a blogger gives. for example people tend to comment on those blogs where they see the blogger is interested in replying.
Can you please suggest me some ways of making a blog look different so that it attracts others?
Amie Marse
This is a tough one. Chris Brogan famously said it took him 8 years to get his first 100 followers. There is no quick fix. Or rather…there aren’t any *good* quick fixes.
I wouldn’t gauge the quality of a blog by the interaction you see on its pages. That has a lot more to do with the audience than the content. For example, SmallBizTrends is a much more community oriented blog then say our company blog. You’ll see very few comments on our blog but our content gets comments when we guest post other places, like this post.
I tell my writers that “comments are good, conversions are better” so we don’t stress about it.
My biggest piece of advice is just to keep consistently producing valuable, top-shelf content. It takes a while to get traction but it is well worth the wait. Buying comments or doing anything in the grey area will only hurt you down the road.
Rachael Wilkins
Great piece, Amie. Thanks for sharing these insights.
As for me, I like to occasionally sing the praises of products and services I have encountered that have made a difference for me and my business – in particular those that I believe other business owners may find useful. I name names when I receive over-the-top customer service, and I include links back to the product or service website.
Keep the good stuff coming, girl!
Imran shahid
Thanks a lot Amie, now I know that it is the content that is important for a good bolg.this will surely help me in improving my blog writing.
Robinsh
Thanks for this update and my goodness I clicked on the headline to read it more because after reading it I realized that sharing my own information with a couple of guest authors in repeated tone and style might be boring my blog readers and now I should invite some third party expert to define the readers problem with their own solutions.
Already got one expert appointed and moving towards creating an amazing interview to post soon, see what would be my readers response.
Jargus-Kowalczyk
I found your tips very interesting ! A fev years ago I creat an information blog about bussines angels in Poland. I recomended Your tips on my blog. I still try to earn on my blog, but it isn’t so easy.
This post has been very informative. I find the third tip very beneficial. Offering solutions to customers is a great way to make my blog informative. Thanks for this info!