Now that we have gone over the anatomy of a blog and the types of interactions that can take place through the blogging medium, it is important to prepare in advance for a professional blogging practice. Forethought about other blogs in your industry, the frequency and types of entries you wish to promote, and attention towards effectively collaborating on the blog with other employees will help to assert control over the qualities of the web presence you wish to develop.

Surveying Existing Blogs: Beginning to Listen

As a blogger you participate in a large virtual conversation, and as in any conversation listening is important. On an ongoing basis it is integral to keep up with other blogs writing about your area of interest so you can react to conversations, and keep up to date with issues affecting your industry.

Using a blog search engine, take some time to find bloggers that are writing about the same or similar topics that you are planning to write about and subscribe to them using an RSS feed reader. A few weeks leading up to the launch of your blog, you should spend some time reading the blogs you’ve subscribe to and try to identify what you think might be missing in terms of valuable information for readers – you may be the one to fill in those blanks.

Frequency

It is a good idea to set out a minimum number of entries to aim for each week. This will allow you to develop a consistent publishing schedule that your readers can come to depend on. Readers are always wary for abandoned or rarely updated blogs – they are drawn to sites with a regular stream of useful information. To begin, three entries per week is recommended. An even more ambitious goal would be five times per week, one for each weekday.

What you might find when you start blogging is that you are not always in the right mood to write. However, there will be other times where you’ll have lots of ideas and feel like you are able to write multiple entries at once. So do it! Break up longer entries into a three part series, or create multiple independent entries. Instead of publishing all of them at once, consider taking advantage of WordPress’s scheduling posts tool and set up evenly paced publishing.

Making it a Foundation for your Business and Ongoing Client Resource

Be prepared to make blogging an integrated part of your business, building in systems to make it an efficient and natural process as part of your business’ development. This will help to increase traffic as you market your blog as a business resource for clients.

  • Instead of locally bookmarking useful websites, blog about them so they can benefit a wider audience, namely your clients.
  • Use your blog as a platform through which people can contact you.
  • Include a reference to your blog in your outgoing email signature and other promotional materials such as newsletters and business cards.
  • Share announcements about your business as it progresses so that clients reading the blog can be kept up-to-date.

In the long term, your blog can become a tool for attracting new clients, as well as act as a platform for archiving research, gaining valuable feedback from your target audiences, and as a way to meet, learn from and interact with other professionals in your field. Your blog provides a channel through which people can come to know a new side of you and your business. Through sharing your expertise, experiences, asking for feedback and listening to your audience, you can grow your blog to be a valuable source of business leads and improve your overall online presence.

Policy

Especially in the case where you might have multiple employees blogging, it can be useful to develop some kind of policy to define blogging requirements or set guidelines. It is important to strike a balance between allowing blog contributors the ability to write openly and honestly, while still protecting your blog’s reputation and respecting your client’s confidentiality agreements. An internal blogging policy can be as formal as a written document employees sign, or as informal as a face-to-face verbal agreement in a meeting. Be prepared to decide what the repercussions for the employee will be if they act against that policy. Yet another option is to assign an employee as blog editor who can filter blog posts before they are published to ensure that the post supports the needs of the business.

Some helpful sample policies other companies have written:

Collaboration in Post Ideas

One of the most difficult parts of blogging is finding great topics to write about. Even if you are the only blogger, or have assigned one of your employees to run the blog, we recommend that other employees help to contribute content ideas for the blog. When ever you think of a new idea for a post, be sure to make note of it. We suggest you make a habit of writing down ideas in a note book, or storing them on your phone or computer. Record any and every possible idea, you never know which idea will be the most appealing when the time comes to sit down and write. A long and interesting list of blogging ideas will provide to be quite valuable on days when you are feeling uninspired or experiencing writers block.

Set up a collaborative online workspace where interesting online posts, images, or articles can be easily clipped in by employees to be shared with the main bloggers.

We recommend using Google Notebook, using its handy browser extension you can select any text or image and right-click to “note it” into shared notebooks your colleagues have access to. Other options include a private shared wiki or a collaborative online document such as Google Docs for a basic shared brainstorming list and reference web site links.

Voice

One of the most important things about a business blog is the presence of a unique blogging voice or style. This will not only allow you to stand out among the rest of the bloggers in your field, but will help your readers feel a strong connection with you. Openness and authenticity are key – the last thing you want is your readers to think of you as a mindless corporate robot. Taking on a larger than life persona or assuming the impersonal authority of a larger company is actually a practice that can intimidate readers. On the other hand, show them your approachability and expertise that comes from an invested passion for the industry will only benefit your business. Your blog and all of the interactions surrounding it will become a kind of living brand as readers come to know you through the online presence you cultivate.