I’m laying it all on the goddam table——most business blogs are bad so hear this plea: start a business blog that will not only avoid boring your audience to death but will stop boring YOU too. After all, you’ll be the one blogging so please, let’s spark joy, shall we?

Here’s what we’re covering:

Who’s the blog for?

Before we can start a business blog we have to establish some fundamentals. Have you got your target audience nailed? I mean really crucified?

This is basic stuff but it’s easy to go off down a self-indulgent tangent. Our brains release dopamine when we talk about ourselves so we can be forgiven for being our own favourite subject. But your clients won’t get industry-based information from a blog about finding yourself at a yoga retreat in Nepal. Unless you’re selling spiritual awakenings (at yoga retreats in Nepal), keep the topics strictly business.

You should know all that ails your customers. You’d certainly speak to them in a way that says, yeah, that’s coming from my perspective.

Choose the right info.

We want our facts to be correct (or they’re not facts) but are we providing the right kind of information? Is it what our clients need——is it what they’re searching for? Your blog can be all things to ALL your customers. And by that I mean, your blog can hit them wherever they are in your funnel.

Blogging is dead: the lie that won’t die.

Keyword research is going to be super important. Not only for trending topics but for the kind of search terms that yield the correct intent. (Clue: the intent you’re after is informational.)

Smash your keywords with customer intent.

Does a blog have to be entertaining?

The depressing truth is, no, it doesn’t. (And business blogs are always light on LOLs.) When we get googling for helpful knowledgeable content, we don’t care how funny or how beautifully written the blogs we land on are. We often want quick and easy-to-understand solutions to the problem.

But this article is about writing a business blog that makes it fun for you, the author. Because if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t make the commitment that blogging requires.

I can’t just churn out facts on The Sarky Blog. That would seriously drain my energy. I couldn’t write regular content that had all the style of a Dairylea sandwich. SEO is a boring subject, especially for beginners so I want them to be entertained. That way they engage and learn.

Learn how to write engaging content.

If you’re not a natural entertainer, don’t sweat it. This is about what makes you enjoy blogging. Find your incentive and incorporate that into the process.

Take the biz out of biz blogging.

The trick is to start a business blog that isn’t business-like at all. Remember in the olden days, when all business web content sounded stuffy and corporate? The language was clunky and overly formal. Gross. Well, you don’t have to continue to blog that way. Break the chains of business blurb!

Stop murdering your copy with clichéd phrases.

There are plenty of strait-laced business blogs already without you adding to the mix. So you’re a little uptight and worried about offending people——guess what? You’ll NEVER be able to control how people react. YOUR blog, YOUR rules. Use contractions——begin a sentence with ‘And’, I promise your English teacher isn’t watching (she’s probably in a retirement home or dead).

I don’t want you to blog in a state of discomfort——context is everything but catch yourself when you say “I mustn’t write that” because you’re blogging for business.

Style AND substance.

If you’re already blogging, you have a writing style. It might be an obvious, strikingly distinctive way with words or something more quiet and understated (and of course, something else entirely). Perhaps you’re still cultivating your style——it doesn’t matter, it will come over time and it might take on several guises along the way.

A hair-raising idiosyncratic writing style might have you lumped with the ‘all fur and no knickers’ crowd. That is to say, you might be thought of as superficially in the know. “She’s deffo all style and no substance, that one.” Yes, you should know your subject back to front, you’re running a business, FFS but unless you’re a fraudster, I wouldn’t worry about not having the expertise to back things up.

Interestingly, your style could be why folks like reading your business blog (I know, what weirdo does that?!). The style might compel them to engage with you online, sign up for the newsletter or even hire you.

But what if someone hates it?

Firstly, who cares, and secondly, who cares? It’s attracting who it’s attracting——the people you really want to work with. And for the rest? Send them thoughts and prayers.

Article updated, 24th April 2024.

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