Five Blogging Tips

Here are some of Irwin’s best tips for getting the most out of small business blogging.

1. Consider your words. For Irwin, creating a post around his company’s keywords is huge. “A lot of times search engines will pick up on my posts based on the keywords I use within them. I want to make sure both Google and my customers know that my writings are significant in the field,” he says. In Irwin’s case, he uses phrases relevant to his business like “video production” in blog titles or tags. “There’s an emphasis on creating content on the web right now. It really helps establish you with new customers. You want to create a happy medium between what’s interesting to the consumer and what you’re trying to sell.”
2. Find inspiration everywhere. When you’re writing about different topics all the time, it might become difficult to think of something new to say. Irwin suggests looking at your own life and experiences with customers for inspiration. “This week I posted an article about a guy who needed a piece of art installed in his house. He hired a crane to bring it six stories high and wanted me to film the experience for him. I called my post ‘Video One Gets Artsy’,” he says. Irwin also suggests writing about what you know and things you’ve done throughout your field. You may not think people will be interested but there’s always someone looking for the information you can provide. They could end up becoming a customer.

3. Pay it forward. Irwin strongly believes that if you help people, they will be more inclined to help you. And this is the case for blogging as well. “I tend to create content around things that will help my clients. Maybe they can do some things themselves and I can help them learn how to do it. A blog entry is a great opportunity to show your personality and give customers a reason to like you” he says.
4. Share your posts. Irwin and his team share their posts through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and his personal site. He suggests getting another person to help you if you’re not familiar with social media to reach a wider audience. Soon, Irwin will also be sending out emails once or twice a month to existing clients highlighting some featured blog posts. “We’ll definitely include a way for clients to opt out if they’d like but overall, we only receive really positive comments about the blog.”

5. Stay cool. It might seem overwhelming to consider creating an entire blog, especially if you’re a small business owner with a lot of time constraints, but Irwin doesn’t see this as a bad thing. “You don’t want to overload customers or yourself,” he says. He suggests determining the nature of an individual post first and allotting the right time to it. “If you need to do some research it might take up to two hours but other posts can be much shorter.” He also says it’s important to do what feels right for your business. “If there’s a week where you can’t get anything posted, it’s fine. Just pick back up when you can. Slowly building a content base is better than not having any at all.”