Tag Archives: Blogging for Businesses

July 12, 2022 · 9:07 am

Branching Out: Expanding Your Niche Industry’s Blog

Every business can benefit from regular, consistent blogging. Depending on the industry you’re in, however, coming up with fresh written content may be easier said than done. Certainly, niche industries face some unique difficulties when it comes to generating new and interesting topics. And if you just rewrite the same blog post over and over again, you won’t be able to drive traffic or build a readership.

The good news? Nobody expects you to write blog posts that are accessible to the masses. After all, you’re not trying to market your brand to everyone. You’re trying to reach the consumers who might actually buy your products and services; in other words, you’re playing to your niche. With that said, there are a few ways you can carefully, consistently expand your readership while coming up with creative avenues for content.

Reference Current Events

One way to branch out from your normal content is to think about ways in which your products or services intersect with current events.

Of course, in our increasingly fragmented and polarized culture, this can be fraught. You definitely don’t want to be too reckless in pursuing controversy, but you can address the realities we’re all living with.

An example? Ever since COVID started, we’ve all experienced issues with supply chain disruptions. If your company makes logistics software, or if you offer a business model that somehow allows customers to bypass these supply chain disruptions, then that may be something worth blogging about.

Tie in Pop Culture

Another way to connect your blog to shared experiences is to address pop culture touchstones.

We’ve implemented this approach a few times at Grammar Chic, using then-hot properties like Mad Men and The Walking Dead to illustrate important content marketing principles. This can be an effective way to make niche content a little bit more universal.

Reflect Your Values

Most business owners have a number of core values, beyond just making a profit. And often, those values are somehow connected to the business itself.

For example, let’s say you run an HVAC maintenance company. And, let’s say you’re passionate about environmental stewardship. There are some obvious connections here. For example, you could write a post about ways for homeowners to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps gently tying in a call-to-action to consider energy efficient HVAC models. This is another powerful way to expand content beyond your niche.

Work with a Partner

These are just a few creative avenues for generating fresh new content ideas, even if it feels like your industry is pretty narrow.

Another way to come up with content ideas? Work with a pro. At Grammar Chic, Inc., our writers are skilled in brainstorming creative ways to illustrate the values of your products and services, above and beyond the basics of your industry.

We’d love to chat with you today about your business blogging needs. Contact us directly at 803-831-7444, or at www.grammarchic.net.

5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog

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As a small business owner, you’ve undoubtedly got a lot on your plate. What’s more, you understand the importance of protecting your time: Everything you do during the course of your day needs to add value to your company, and anything that doesn’t fit that criteria is ultimately wasted effort. It’s for this reason that some business owners excuse themselves from blogging, assuming it to be something that’s ornamental at best, pointless at worst.

Actually, though, you might be surprised by how much utility can be gained from a well-maintained business blog. Plus, you don’t even have to handle the blogging yourself: There’s always the option of outsourcing it to ghostbloggers, like the pros at Grammar Chic.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s consider just some of the ways in which a blog can benefit your business—some of the ways in which it is most definitely not a waste of your time. Here are five of them.

Blogging Turns Your Website into an Invaluable Resource

Ultimately, you want your website to be a hub of information—a place where customers can have their questions answered, their pain points addressed, and their problems solved. You want to position yourself as an authority, and your products and services as remedies for what’s ailing them. A blog can help with this. Your company blog posts can authoritatively address common questions, provide product how-tos, list the benefits of your services, or explain how your industry works in a way that will resonate with consumers. The upshot? Consumers who are better informed, more trusting, and more likely to feel confident moving forward with a purchase.

Blogging Helps You Improve Your Website’s Google Ranking

We like to tell our clients that Google is a monster that constantly needs to be fed. That is to say, Google’s search engine algorithms are always prowling for fresh content, and the websites that rank the best are the ones that are updated regularly with fresh, value-adding content. A business blog is the single best way to regularly add content to your site, and thus can help you rank better and improve your visibility among search engine users.

Your Blog Can Be Repurposed for LinkedIn Pulse, Too

LinkedIn’s publishing platform, called Pulse, has quickly become one of the truly invaluable tools for establishing thought leadership. We use Pulse on behalf of our own company as well as many of our clients, and we’ve found it to be a significant source of website traffic, online shares, and more. What’s more, it can help you build credibility among your peers and name recognition within your industry. Best of all, you can use your regular company blog posts as LinkedIn Pulse fodder—another reason why blogging can be beneficial.

Blog Posts Make Great Email Marketing Content

Email marketing is still one of the most powerful and direct ways of reaching out to clients, but the challenge many business owners face is knowing what to say in their emails. Effective email marketing provides the reader with something of real value, and sending a link to a particularly substantive blog post is a great way to provide your email subscribers with something that’s free as well as useful—which is in turn great for improving your customer loyalty and engagement.

You Can Share Blogs on Social Media, Too

Finally, note that a good social media account includes both curated and original content; finding content from other sources is easy enough, but what will you do for original social media posts? The obvious answer is to share your blog posts, a smart way to keep your Facebook and Twitter followers in the loop.

A blog really can add value to your company—and if you want that value without having it eat into your daily schedule too much, contact Grammar Chic. Our ghostbloggers can help! Reach us at www.grammarchic.net or 803-831-7444.

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Filed under Blog Writing, Content Marketing, Web Content

Tagged as benefits of blogging, blog content, Blog writing, blog writing for businesses, blogging for a small business, Blogging for Businesses, Business Blog, business blogging, content marketing, content marketing and blogging, importance of blogging for a business, reasons to have a business blog, why have a business blog

November 18, 2016 · 1:41 pm

How to Overcome Writer’s Block (And Generate Better Blog Topics)

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Content marketing requires constant engagement. It’s like a beast that must continually be fed. You can’t slack off, or take a month off from content creation; there are always new blog posts to be written, new social media updates to share, new emails to send. If you stop moving—if you stop hustling—your audience will shrink and your efforts will come up short.

This can obviously lead to some obstacles. Take blogging as an example. When you’re tasked with developing new, unique, creative blog posts every single day, it can be draining. You may find yourself developing a case of writer’s block, even as you also realize that you don’t have that luxury. You’ve got to keep writing—but how can you come up with a fresh topic to write about, without simply plundering and repurposing older ideas?

There are some simple habits that can prove effective in pumping those creative juices, and providing you with the fresh insights and ideas you need.

Have Regular Brainstorming Sessions

You may be the person who is tasked with writing the company blog posts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get some help sparking your creativity. Meet with team members once a month or so and ask them for their thoughts. What are some of the questions that customers have been asking them? What are some of the topics they’ve detected interest in? How do they see the blog being improved, made more useful and informative? These brainstorming sessions can generate new perspectives you may not have thought of otherwise.

Look Through Your Customer Correspondence

Make a habit of regularly reading your recent customer emails or social messages, and take note of the questions or concerns that people are bringing up. Those are things people want to hear more about. Those are the pain points. And those can make for really timely and relevant blog posts.

Consider Your Hobbies

We’ve written articles comparing content marketing to The Walking Dead and to Mad Men—because we happen to really like those shows. Are there activities or passions in your personal life that you could translate into blog posts? Think about the things you care most about, outside of the office, and ask yourself how these things intersect with your professional life.

Subscribe to Other Industry Blogs

This one is simple: When you see another industry blog that you admire, bookmark it, or subscribe to the RSS feed. Make a habit of at least skimming through these posts from your competitors, and using them as potential launch pads for your own posts. (Obviously, you need to make sure you’re putting your own spin on things, not pilfering posts wholesale.)

These are all basic habits you can form that will keep your good-idea machine hoppin’. If you need an extra hand, though, we’re always around. Contact Grammar Chic’s ghostwriters at 803-831-7444 or at www.grammarchic.net.

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Filed under Blog Writing, Business Writing, Content Marketing, Content Writing, Writing

Tagged as Blogging, Blogging advice, Blogging for Businesses, Business Blogging Tips, Business Content Marketing, content marketing, content marketing and blogging, Content Marketing Tips, how to avoid writer's block, how to break your writer's block, How to fight writer's block, working through writer's block, writer's block

February 4, 2016 · 3:20 pm

Blogging Blunders: Don’t Regress in 2016!

We’re now more than a month into a new calendar year—and a new chance for your company to excel in its blogging endeavors.

Don’t blow it.

Business blogging can be an invaluable way to build credibility and trust; to cultivate authority and thought leadership; to engage readers and to drive traffic to your website. But that’s all assuming you’re blogging well. That’s all assuming you aren’t falling prey to classic blogging blunders, or regressing in your business blogging practices.

We’ll show you what we mean: A few blogging faux pas that are easy enough to make, but potentially lethal to your overall marketing goals.

Writing Posts, but Not Augmenting Them

A good blog post isn’t just about the words on the page—though obviously, those are important! It’s really about the overall presentation. And if you don’t have compelling images, infographics, embedded videos, and/or social sharing buttons, your presentation leaves something to be desired.

Writing to Nobody in Particular

Quick: Who’s your audience? What are the demographics? What are the values and pain points? It’s critical to keep these things in mind as you blog. You can write the best blog post in the world, but if you’re writing to the wrong crowd, it won’t make any impact on your readers.

Writing, but Not Sharing

A great blog post means absolutely nothing if it never gets seen—if it never gets read. That’s where social media comes into play. The minute you publish a new post, your next step should be spreading the post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest—you name it. Don’t let your content just sit there. Pass it around.

Writing About Stale Topics

Don’t beat a dead horse. If you’ve written about a topic in the past and it hasn’t gotten you any results, there’s no point in resurrecting it. Move on to something your readers actually care about.

Writing Without Linking

A good blog post is like an information hub: Not only does it provide insight of its own, but it points readers toward some related resources and avenues for further learning. Internal and external links can really add depth and context to a solid blog post.

One way to take your blogging to the next level this year: Hire a ghostblogger. Contact Grammar Chic to start the conversation: 803-831-744, or www.grammarchic.net.

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Filed under Blog Writing, Social Media, Writing

Tagged as blog content, blog management, Blog writing, Blog writing advice, Blog writing tips, blog writing tips for businesses, Blogging, Blogging advice, Blogging for Businesses, Blogging Mistakes

October 21, 2015 · 12:58 pm

5 Simple Ways to Get More Twitter Traction on Your Blog Posts

Many small business owners start blogging with lofty ambitions of seeing their posts go viral—or at the very least, generating some solid activity across various social platforms. Often, it doesn’t pan out that way. In particular, business owners can quickly grow frustrated with the lack of tweeting their blogs attract.

Remember that content marketing is about long-term relationship building, so you’re probably not going to get a ton of retweets overnight. Also remember that it’s ultimately quality that drives engagement and social sharing—so eventually you may have to reckon with the fact that your blog posts aren’t quite up to snuff. If that’s where you land, reach out to Grammar Chic to talk about professional ghostblogging services!

But in the meantime, there are a few simple fixes that could lead to big gains in your blog tweeting—not necessarily instantaneously, but in time.

Make it easy to share your posts on Twitter. Specifically, add Tweet buttons to each post. This is an incredibly simple thing that many small business owners still neglect. Put a Twitter button either at the top or bottom of each post, or on a sidebar. You may even try a combination of places. The easier you make it for people to tweet out your post, the more likely it is that they’ll do it.

Ensure that your blog looks good on mobile devices. This is, after all, where most people do their tweeting. If you have to zoom in or out to adjust the wonky perspective, you need to talk to your website guru about a more mobile-friendly format. (Or, if you’re using WordPress as your CMS, you just need to go into the control panel and turn on mobile viewing.)

Work on snappy titles. And when we say snappy, we mean short enough that they can quite easily fit into a tweet, along with a link to the post. If your titles top 140 characters, you’re making them waaaaay too wordy. Additionally, play around with some of the battle-tested methods for generating headline attention—lists, tips, questions, provocation, etc.

Mention other industry experts. This is a great way to get some retweets, but make sure you do it gracefully. One thing we recommend: Quote an article or blog from an industry insider, then do an @ mention when you tweet out your post. Hopefully, that industry insider will see it and retweet to all of his or her Twittter followers.

Ask people to tweet out your blog posts. There’s no harm in asking, and there are plenty of ways to do it—on your e-mail receipts, thank-you pages, e-mail signatures, etc.

Hopefully, some of these fixes will make an impact on your Twitter volume. If not, give us a call. You can reach Grammar Chic at 803-831-7444, or www.grammarchic.net.

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Filed under Blog Writing, Content Marketing, Social Media

Tagged as Blog writing, Blog writing advice, Blogging for Businesses, business blogging, content marketing, Content Marketing Advice, Content Marketing Tips, Social media content marketing, Social Media engagement, Social Media following, Social Media help, Twitter Advice, Twitter Engagement, Twitter Traction

April 22, 2015 · 1:15 pm

How to Blog Consistently—Even While Running a Business

The biggest impediment to regular content creation isn’t a lack of ideas or even a dearth of writing talent. It’s not a lack of understanding about how content marketing works or why it is beneficial. For many small business owners, it boils down to one simple thing: A lack of time.

You may not have a single spare moment in your day that you could devote to writing. What’s maddening about it is that you know there are people who do it. You know business owners who not only run successful companies, but also have robust writing habits. They pen their own company blogs with great regularity, and you just can’t understand how.

We don’t claim to have a magic bullet or a slam dunk strategy, but we do have a few tweaks you can make to your day to generate a bit more time for a writing life of your own.

Be ruthless with your time. What are the parts of your day that simply do not add value to your business or to your life? Where are the areas where you are least effective? You can probably figure it out by spending a week or so carrying a logbook and tracking how you spend each hour and each minute. You may be surprised by how much time is wasted answering e-mails or attending needless meetings. Cut the filler and use that time to focus on content creation.
If you don’t want to outsource your content writing, then outsource something else. All businesses have simple, repeatable tasks that can be done by others—bookkeeping, payroll, what have you. Delegate, automate, and free yourself to write if that’s what you’re most passionate about.
Schedule it. This will seem obvious to some and revolutionary to others: If you seriously want to write company blog posts, you need to put it on your schedule, rather than just hope for a few free minutes to open themselves up to you.
Block out some time. Rather than scheduling 15 minutes of blogging time on Monday morning and then another half hour on Wednesday afternoon, schedule all your blogging time in one big chunk—say, two or three hours on Friday afternoon. See how much work you can get done in a big stretch of dedicated writing time.
Seek inspiration. Your writing life may not get far if you sit down during your scheduled blogging time just to stare at a blank page. Try to keep track of inspiration throughout your week—simply jotting down ideas, bookmarking compelling articles you read, and keeping track of customer questions. This may take an extra minute or two out of your week, but it can make your blogging time much more productive!

For more blogging strategies and insights, don’t hesitate to contact the Grammar Chic team: You can reach us at 803-831-7444 or www.grammarchic.net.