5 Steps to Take to Start Your Small Business Blog Today

5 steps to take to start yor small business blog today

Our write up is aimed at revealing 5 Steps to Take to Start Your Small Business Blog Today. Starting a blog for your small business is one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness. Such is referred to as Business blogging. But what is business blogging? It is all about providing relevant and useful written content to a targeted audience. Today, businesses are operating in an ever changing landscape of technology. Consumer demands are also on a continuously changing sphere. This makes it even more important for small businesses to develop a strong web presence to actively engage and maintain a continuous communication line with their customers.

Today, competition is more than ever alarming in all business sectors. Failing to exploit any business strategy will give an added advantage to your competitors. That’s why having a highly optimized website is an essential component in the establishment of a comprehensive branding and online marketing strategy. The current global economy demands that businesses make an extra step in order to survive in it’s competitive market. Through consistent blogging, you can successfully build your business’s brand and boost cash flow. Blogging is a less costly way for small businesses to drive traffic to their websites. Small businesses can as well make us of blogging to enhance their inbound marketing efforts. It is also possible to attract more perspective customers through blogging. Starting a blog is easier than you think. Just embrace the following 5 steps to take to start your small business blog today.

5 Steps to take to start your small business blog today

Facts

Almost 80% of companies that practice consistent blogging end up with more customers than their counterparts that do not. In addition, about 82% of businesses admit that blogging is crucial for their business success. To start and benefit from blogging, make use of the following steps. For those who already have a WordPress website for their business and want to add a blog, there is no need to start afresh. Just do so from the admin area of your website’s dashboard. Adding a blog to a non-WordPress site requires more technical skills. If this is your case, we’ll advice that you get help from a web designer or developer. For those starting from scratch, below is a step-by-step guide:

1. Chose a blogging platform

Choosing a blogging platform is an important decision to make. Although choosing the wrong platform won’t break you, it will make things more difficult than they ought to be. There exist many blogging platforms from among which you’ll need to chose the best. We’ll recommend that you go for the most versatile and user-friendly platform known to be WordPress. There exist two types of WordPress sites among which you’ll need to chose. Choosing the right one which meets your needs is vital. The first type is WordPress.com. It allows you to setup a blog and its domain in just a few minutes. It has the structure www.yoursite.wordpress.com. To give your business a professional appearance, we do not recommend this version.

The second type is WordPress.org. We recommend that you use this version for your business as it appears more professional. It allows you to create your own self-hosted blog. Although WordPress.org is simple to use, non-techies might need a little help during first time setup. Both versions of WordPress are free. What will cost a bit is Hosting and Domain Registration which we’ll handle in another step. There are several other platforms that are completely free for use. They also offer the ability to setup your website in a few steps. These other options include, Weebly, Joomla, and Drupal. Whatever the case, just keep it in mind that most of these blogging platforms won’t work well for business blogs in a long run. They are restricted in terms of design, and functionality. In addition, optimizing these blogs for SEO is difficult.

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2. Choose a WordPress theme

WordPress allows you to easily customize the look and feel of your blog, using themes. This is one of its best features which you’ll enjoy. The WordPress Theme Directory contains a large list of free themes among which you can chose that which pleases you for free. You can as well check out Premium (Paid) themes at a site like ThemesForest. Checkout the following when choosing a theme:

Go for one which is responsive enough to display properly on a variety of devices, including mobile smartphones, desktops, and tablets.
Check if it comes with some form of customer support and/or a support forum.
Find out if it allows for a high level of customization.

3. Register a domain name

Once you’ve decided which platform to go for, you’ll need to chose a domain name. A domain name is the URL used to access your site (e.g., www.yoursite.com). You can get the name through a domain registrar like Bluehost, NameCheap, 1&1 or GoDaddy. Your domain will cost as little as $10 a year. Those who are willing to pay more than one year can benefit from a discount. Use your trademark business name as domain name if it is available. Choose an easy to remember domain name yet specific enough to differentiate you from other businesses having the same name. It is wise to go for a .com domain (as opposed to .net, .biz, .online etc).

4. Purchase web hosting

Although your WordPress site is free, you’re required to pay to have your blog hosted. Note that web hosting cost more than domain rental. There are many companies through which you can purchase your web hosting. The most popular are Bluehost, GoDaddy, Hostgator, and 1&1. We’ll recommend that you purchase web hosting from Bluehost and obtain a free domain name for one year.

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5. Start Blogging

Upon completing your blog’s setup, you’ll need to start writing. Learn what it takes to write articles that are friendly to humans and search engines so that they can rank high for more traffic. develop a writing plan and get started. Writing 2 to 3 times a week is ideal. If you can’t, it’s still better to write 1 post per week than nothing. It is advisable to write articles that are at least 300 words and above. Also read the following articles: