One way in which business blogs are unlike personal blogs is that they’re not… well, personal. They are personable, but they’re not personal like a diary is personal. Business blogs need to fulfill a business purpose. Or, if you turn it around to face the customer: a business blog should meet customer needs. A business has a purpose beyond just earning money. Earning money is simply the result of a business fulfilling its greater purpose. A business blog helps the business fulfill its greater purpose. Hammering out the purpose of a business blog is one of the most important early steps in the process of starting a business blog.
The purpose of a business blog should be summed up in one simple statement. For example, the purpose of getting consulting clients. If I sold products, the purpose of my blog might be to help me sell more products and increase customer loyalty and satisfaction regarding those products.
Goals are what you need to accomplish in order to fulfill your blog’s purpose. To help you choose a direction, I’ve listed some non-mutually exclusive overarching goals a business blog can strive towards:
- Convey company news and events.
- Demonstrate knowledge, expertise, passion, and authority in a niche or industry.
- Provide helpful tips and info on getting the most from company services or products.
- Pass along success stories from customers about how your business has helped them become more successful.
- Dominate a niche or industry in search results (hence market and mind share) by becoming the authoritative source for information on a subject and using good SEO.
- Become a resource for the media and cottage industry about your business’ market, elevating your business’ position and brand.
When I speak of a business blog, I’m not specifying any size of business. What I’ve written above could just as easily apply to a business of one as to a Fortune 500 company.
The points above can be combined in any way: all of them or some of them can be the goals of a business blog. The first one alone would make me and everyone else yawn as we reached for the back button. They aren’t exhaustive, either.
