How To Write A Great Blog

5 Reasons You’re Not Blogging

In Blogging by Brian Town

You may have some concerns when it comes to creating a blog for your business, but it’s important that you don’t let these concerns stop you from trying!

Here are some of the reasons you may not be blogging, as well as a bit of information on how to overcome these concerns:

1. You don’t know how to tell a story.

You may think you have no idea how to tell a story, but have you ever taken the time to try? The story you want to tell may be the most entertaining, hilarious story around but, without a hook, you’ll get nowhere.

A hook is your attention-getter, a question or quote to hook your reader’s curiosity. Once you have someone’s curiosity, it’s difficult for them to not read your post to the end, because as readers we always want to know how something ends!
All stories have a natural momentum to them so, if you simply state what happened in chronological order, you can’t help but captivate your audience.

Once you’ve completed telling your story, you need to think about one last thing, what was the purpose of telling your story? Take a moment to reflect on what your story has shared and why this story should be passed along by your viewers. If it’s interesting, entertaining, hilarious, captivating, etc., people will want to read it, and they’ll probably share it with others!

2. You think your business is boring.

No matter what industry you find yourself in, it is always possible to spark an interest in your readers with the right content!

Make the content you’re creating practical, be able to answer the serious questions your readers have or even impart them with any information they never even considered important to know, and they will be interested. You also want to make an effort to change up the forms of content you’re providing your readers; don’t be afraid to have a post that simply contains an infographic or create quirky videos that leave a lasting impact. Use your blog to connect with your target audience and show them that a “boring” business can be quite entertaining when given the chance.

3. Search Engine Optimization confuses you.

This is understandable, but the basics are easy to learn! With a little practice, you can be an SEO pro.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your blog posts search engine friendly. The better the optimization of your post, the higher ranking it will have when keywords you’ve chosen are searched for. Keyword research is important for page optimization as well as including your carefully researched keywords within the post itself.

4. You have no idea where to find blog topics.

Creating and finding blog topics is not as difficult as you may think: always keep an eye out for anything pertaining to your industry and you’ll find more than you would expect. Create a Google alert to keep you up to date whenever keywords pertaining to your business are mentioned, take the time to scan newspapers and magazines as well, look into what your most popular blog posts are and brainstorm a sequel to it, perhaps writing an update or what could be done better for a next time scenario… Look at that, tons of ideas already!

5. You’re easily overwhelmed.

Do you think blogging will overwhelm you? Well don’t be afraid, because you don’t need to heap the responsibility of blogging all onto your own shoulders! As a business looking to begin a blog, it’s important to have a team of bloggers, even guest bloggers, who are able to all have the expectation of creating content evenly divided among everyone. Take the time to pace yourself, schedule your posts so they go out on a routine that is easy for everyone to keep up with, as well as consider setting mini-deadlines. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, perhaps stick to your favorite type of blog post so creating the material doesn’t seem as daunting. There are many ways to ask for help from others around you, so don’t be consumed by the expectation that you’ll be overwhelmed!

Hopefully this helped to ease some of your blogging worries, and get you started!

Check out Michigan Creative’s blog if you’re looking for a little blogging inspiration!

– Marissa

Sources:

http://www.ryanhanley.com/33-excuses-for-not-blogging-about-your-business/
http://www.business2community.com/blogging/5-ideas-to-spice-up-your-boring-business-blog-01244865#dOLJjJc7tr0vSlze.97
http://www.openvine.com/small-business-internet-blog/6-ways-to-optimize-your-blog-posts-for-seo