About a year ago a friend of mine started his own home based business. I can’t go into the details (upon his request), but he essentially took his favorite hobby and wanted to make some extra cash.
He is not a very technical guy so he asked me about a website. I told him he should blog and he replied with laughter. I took the time to break down how easy it would be using a platform like WordPress. That intrigued him. When I broke down how WordPress would let him have a blog and a traditional site wrapped in one – he was almost sold. I eventually convinced him by offering to do the initial set up. The next day I easily set up his blog and it was up to him to provide content. Provide content, he did! He was a voracious blogger. He actually posted twice a day. He posted once in each of his categories: starting a home business and another category related to to his product.
It didn’t take long for him to call me. Just about 2 weeks later he was excitedly telling me about a guy that contacted him wondering about a custom project. I would classify the blog as a success at that point. Over the next year we documented the advantages the home based business blog had meant for his business.
Here is a list of some of the real life tangible benefits of the blog:
-He sold the custom project mentioned above
-A local newspaper got word of his blog on twitter and did a story on him
-A related industry quarterly asked him to contribute – getting his name out to thousands of potential customers
-He met 2 local (relatively speaking) tradesman who were in his field and offered him great advice and opportunities for collaboration
-He ranked on Google for a number of long tail keywords that eventually meant he was getting substantial traffic to his site that even led to some sales
-The home business category was great for motivation – it kept all of his triumphs and mistakes in a neatly ordered online diary that allowed him to reflect. It also helped him make sure he didn’t make a mistake twice.
A home based business is the perfect match with a blog. As you can see above, it is a great networking tool that you can be used for personal motivation as well. If you want to give your home based business a jolt, harness the power of the internet and blogging.
If you are looking for blog writing tips, then look no further. The following five tips will help you transform your blog from boring to brilliant!
1. Write Like You Talk: This is not advice that you will hear in Journalism 101, but when it comes to blogging it is an entirely different story. If you write like you talk you can engage readers quickly, because they will feel connected with you. It also helps for editing purposes, when you read over your blog post, do it out loud and you can hear if it flows naturally.
2. Edit, Edit, Edit: This goes well with the above point – read over your blog post at least three times before you publish. Yes, spellchecking software is great, but it won’t catch all the mistakes. It will miss grammar mistakes, punctuation and words that are spelled properly but used wrong. If you value your readers then you will want to make sure you present your best possible work.
3. Avoid Overkill: For the most part, I don’t think people are into 9000 word blog posts. A lot of people will scan a blog post without really reading it, if your post is short and simple it is more likely to grab their attention.
4. Don’t Be A Wimp: Do not be a wimp – stand up for what you believe in. Take a controversial stand or two, yes some people might get angry, but they also might send the link around in their anger. Getting people talking and engaging you (even negatively) can help your blog’s exposure. For every person you anger, there will be someone who agrees with you. Stick to your guns in comments as well. I used to dread negative comments, but now I view it as a way to interact with my readers.
5. Your Work Isn’t Over When You Hit Publish: You can write as much as you want but if people don’t read it, who cares? Market your posts every time you make one. The average person has a couple hundred friends on Facebook so share it on there. Share it on Twitter if you use it. Email it to your friends if you don’t use social media. You can also send it out to bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. None of these strategies cost you anything!
Now that you have these five tips to work with you should be able to consistently create quality content. Remember to use each tip every time you write a post and you will undoubtedly notice your comments, traffic and opt-ins climb steadily!