First of all, if you don’t have a blog for your business, you should. Blogs are no longer a place for personal musings as they once were. Today, a blog is basically a place to showcase your business and get people to notice you. It also allows you to do marketing by informing your most loyal customers of the latest products that you have for sale. In short, a blog is a vital business tool and one that you need to have if you want to succeed with your e-mail list or with making money online. However, many people do make mistakes when running a blog. Here’s what you need to know:
Pick a Realistic Schedule
The number one mistake that people make when running a blog is that they don’t pick a realistic schedule for updating. Most people know by now that it is vital that you continually update your blog and get new material onto it on a regular basis. If you are not aware of this then you are making an even bigger mistake. However, even those who know they need to keep their blogs updated regularly make a huge mistake with scheduling.
Too many people start off a blog being super gung ho and wanting to publish aggressively – around 2-5 times every day. The problem is, blogging takes a great deal of time and you’ll find that you simply won’t be able to keep up with the demand for new content to be added to your site. You need to be more realistic and think carefully about how much time you’ll actually have for updating otherwise you’ll get burnt out quickly.
Don’t Assume You Can Do It All Yourself
WordPress is by far the world’s most popular blogging platform and it’s relatively easy to use. That’s why a great many people rely on it for running their blogs. However, even with WordPress, problems can arise and if you’re not sure what to do, you need to ask for help. It may also be worth your while to hire a professional to help you to fix up the blog so that it looks better than it would look with just your own efforts. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune either. Depending on what you need done, you can get your blog customized for as little as $100.
Stay Focused
Don’t try to be all things to all people. Your blog should be relatively focused on a single niche. Remember that you are not running the New York Times here. You are running a company blog which should focus on specific issues and specific topics. Even if your company blog could potentially get off on all kinds of tangents, it’s best to keep it fairly focused. This doesn’t mean that your blog about personal finance can’t have an article on the best way to save money while moving. However, it shouldn’t go so far as to talk about the best way to organize your home since that really goes off on a tangent which has nothing to do with the basic focus of your blog.