Online shopping and cryptocurrencies have changed the business landscape since the turn of the century. A new market has opened up for people who want to learn about the latest business order. A well-planned business blog with up-to-date and unique content is a business that can become successful over time.
You don’t have to be a well-known businessperson to start a business blog, but a keen interest in the subject is essential. Business is changing, so your blog posts must be current, relevant, and unique. Thus, you will have to keep updated with daily business events and filter out the news you consider interesting to your followers.
Write Your Mission Statement
Before you do anything or invest any money in your new business, you must define it. What kind of demographic are you looking to target? What type of business post do you want to publish? How are you going to grow your blog?
This mission statement will remind you, further on down the line, about why you started your blog in the first place. It doesn’t have to have any financial details of startup costs. This is something you would include in a business plan.
Before you take any step toward starting your business blog, you need to think of a unique name for your blog. We recommend that you develop a concise, sweet, and memorable name. However, you can try our blog name generator if you need some inspiration.
Find a Way to Monetize Your Blog
If you are seriously looking to make money off your business blog, you should take the money aspect more seriously than the content. Your monetization approach will define the types of business content you post and how you develop in the long run. Due to this, you should think more like an entrepreneur.
There are several ways to monetize your blog, but this depends on the type of blog you’d love to start. For instance, writing a low-investment business blog forms a sustainable way to expand for little cost instead of taking time & energy. In contrast to this, a lot of people think the only way to start making money off blogs is by using platforms like Google AdSense.
Although Ads are a lucrative way to make money off your blogs, they require huge traffic. Fortunately, there are several other ways a startup blog can quickly monetize without a massive audience. This is even more feasible with a loyal audience than a large one.
Below are six ways to monetize your business blog:
- Selling book: You can write a book based on inspiration or knowledge you have gained from years of writing blog posts. Afterward, you can sell your book in whatever format you wish to. Asides from generating income from the sales of your book, your blog will become economically viable.
- Affiliate marketing: This monetization strategy offers you a commission on every product you sell to a partner. The commissions you receive can accumulate long-term, making it a good passive income. For instance, you can promote a product from Amazon in a gear review you’ve posted to attract readers. Then your blog earns money if a reader purchases the item after clicking the link.
- Services: As a new business blogger, there are chances that you’re a specialist in a particular area, and you are good with words. You can monetize your business by providing services like coaching, consulting, coaching, & speaking at public events.
- Subscriptions: When your audience finds substance in your published information, some won’t mind paying a monthly fee for exclusive content. This way, you get money off your blogs through subscriptions on platforms like Youtube.
Apart from making money, it would help if you also considered your audience and different ways to serve them well.
Choose a Niche for Your Business Blog
Although you may find it very challenging to stand out, there are two ways to stand all competition. The first way is by focusing on a niche, and the other by creating content with unique elements that your readers can’t find elsewhere.
It will be best to go for a mile deep and an inch broad niche. This will help you create content consistently without running out of ideas. Furthermore, you need to ensure that your chosen niche provides an audience that goes well with your monetization strategy. What services or products would your audience love to purchase? You can denote this in several ways.
- Concentrate on a particular location (e.g., New York).
- Choose a specific aspect within a more extensive category.
- Write your content differently or use an exceptional voice (e.g., humor).
- Contend with high quality (e.g., publish in-depth blogs on a topic that no one else would love to do).
Choose a Blogging Platform and Template
Before publishing your first blog post, you must set up your business blog hosting & content management system. This aspect is where several aspiring bloggers get stuck when they’re unsure of the right platform to invest their time and funds. However, it usually comes down to choosing between a hosted or a self-hosted platform.
- Hosted. A hosted platform allows an easy and fast blog setup. For example, Shopify includes hosting in all its pricing plans. Contrary to that, some hosted websites like Wix or Blogger limit their customization options.
- Self-hosted. These sites offer better customization options, but users have to pay a monthly fee to host the site by themselves, which also requires some initial configuration. Nevertheless, if you’re thinking of choosing the self-hosted approach, WordPress is the go-to open-source platform. You should lookout for the following features when choosing a platform.
- Good Usability
- No HTML skills or coding required
- Has the potential to grow with your blog
As you continue your journey as a business blogger, there will be a time you’d need to upgrade the appearance and functionality of your website. This will help maintain your reputation as your brand evolves and your website traffic increases.
It will be best also to make sure your business blog has a healthy ecosystem of apps and plug-ins. This will help optimize your website’s performance and promote efficiency as you back up your site, market new blogs, and simplify tasks.
Several bloggers choose free hosting accounts like Tumblr and Medium because they give them access to an active community of bloggers & readers. You don’t have to create your own blog on these free websites to use them. Moreover, it’s helpful to know that you take advantage of the audience on these platforms by republishing your posts.
Create a Publishing Strategy
Try to flesh out a consistent schedule for your business blog posts at least one month in advance so that your audience can have an idea of when to expect new content. However, you can always adjust the calendar if there’s a feature story that must be published fast.
Write an outline before writing blog posts. Creating an outline may be a step that so many bloggers might want to skip, but it is an effective way to get all the points you need. Moreover, it will help ensure that you use all relevant keywords and help you focus on your business operations. Every time you finish writing your business blog posts, below are some important things to do before publishing.
- Edit your work. Using a writing tool like Grammarly can help you spot grammar and syntax errors. You can also delegate the task to an expert editor to give your blog posts the best quality.
- Organize information under a scale of headings. Subheadings promote readability and make your article more attractive to readers.
- Utilize headlines & social sharing images. A headline and picture can build or destroy your distribution. Although we don’t recommend creating clickbait, exceptional images and headlines that appear on social feeds stir curiosity which causes people to read your blog.
Additionally, it will help to keep in mind that your audience can’t grow overnight. There will be some hits and misses, but you have to keep going to grow.
Get People to Read Your Blogs Regularly
Several bloggers think about growing an audience after they’ve started publishing. If you would love to quickly build up momentum, you must reflect on this even before launching your business blog. However, one good way to do this is by creating relevant and engaging posts. We will be discussing ideas for blog posts below.
Ideas for blog posts
Two business segments have grown exponentially in the last decade—online shopping and cryptocurrency. Online shopping has become the norm for all of us, and because of its low barriers to entry has attracted budding entrepreneurs to the market. In terms of investments, cryptocurrencies and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have become the trend. Many people think they can make quick money from both, but most of the time do not have the knowledge or expertise to do so.
A business blog that concentrates on these modern business segments has the potential to gain a vast audience if it is done right. Your blogs could combine beginner guides and the latest news and technologies surrounding them.
There are many ways to sell your product online. Your blog could outline the pros and cons of each method. You could review all the new currencies being launched on the market regarding crypto, giving objective advice. NFTs are a relatively recent phenomenon that involves the trading of digital art. Many people know what they are but need to learn more about them. Your business blog could bring your followers through the history of NFTs and advise them on new happenings in the market.
Lay the Foundations
One of the best things you can do to promote your new blog is to set up social media accounts specific to your blog. Advertising on Facebook is one of the best methods for beginning your marketing efforts because it’s free!
You don’t need to start every social media platform right away. We suggest starting with one or two that you’re comfortable with and building from there. You can choose to add more social media platforms to extend your reach over time.
Social media platforms that you are familiar with are probably the most popular ones. They include Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Most of these platforms use images to attract your audience’s attention. We recommend buying a high-quality camera or taking some time to learn how to use your current camera.
Learning to edit your images with free online photo editing tools can also be an excellent way to increase the popularity and reach of your posts. A beautiful picture is just as good as (or even better than) a well-crafted blog post.
You can use a smartphone/camera phone holder to take video. Many bloggers invest in a cheap circular camera ring to quickly improve the quality of their photos or videos. If you decide to produce podcasts, we recommend investing in a high-quality microphone.
Top 3 Business Bloggers
I would be surprised if you hadn’t heard of Gary V. The Vaynerchuk family immigrated to the U.S.A. in 1978. His first major success occurred in the 1990s when he put his father’s wine and liquor business on the internet. The business exploded.
One of the first ways Gary V. started producing daily content was via YouTube with a daily video related to his father’s wine business. He has since then started his own business blog, written books, started a podcast, and gone on to be an extremely influential icon in modern day business.
Gary V. is active on many platforms. As listed on his website, you can find him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Medium, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, as well as his podcast.
It would be difficult to say what Gary V.’s most popular type of content would be. He’s just that popular because of his personality or rather, his brand.
Mike Michalowicz graduated from Virginia Tech with two degrees: one in finance and a second in management science. He has started and sold two successful companies and was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year while still with his first start up.
Michalowicz is the author of six books about business. He is a well known business educator and writer who has appeared on numerous television shows and in many written business publications. He is also available as a speaker for business events and has appeared around the country including TedX Fulton Street.
In addition to his six books and blog, Mike also has a podcast called, ‘The Profit First.”
You can find Mike on Google+, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
#3 Darren Hardy
Darren Hardy is a speaker and author of three books, including the best known, “The Compound Effect.” Darren started his first business when he was 18 years old. He was also a publisher for Success Magazine, a business publication which promotes personal and professional development.
Darren’s website features a popular free daily email/video mentorship called “Better Everyday.” He talks a lot about mindset and attitude and how they have a huge impact on achieving your business and personal goals. He calls himself a “Success Mentor.”
You can find Darren Hardy on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Although he doesn’t have his own podcast, he is a frequent guest on other business related podcasts.
Conclusion
A business blog will always be a viable business, as business is ongoing and never goes out of fashion. The important thing is to keep up with the changing trends and identify business opportunities for your followers. New businesses like online stores don’t require a huge amount of investment and, therefore, attract many people to the market. Most of these business owners usually have little or no experience in online selling, and your business blog can lead them on the right path. Similarly, with new-age investments, like cryptocurrency and NFTs, people will need guidance on buying them and what types to buy.
If you provide your followers with unique content, the traffic to your website will grow. All the other relevant social media sites will also help with this. You can have passive income through book sales, affiliate marketing, and subscriptions when monetizing your blog. If you keep adding helpful content, your blog will grow, and you might find yourself in a situation where the business covers all its fixed costs and can afford to give you a dividend. We wish you the best!
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