This is not my first rodeo...err, blog. I've had several false starts into the world of blogging. At first, I started a random blog connected to my original website, www.jodiet.com. I tried to write about things that struck me as funny, what I was thinking about, or things that spoke to me in some way. One may think that such a wide open blog subject would mean a never-ending supply of blog post topics. It had the opposite effect for me; without a focused blog topic, I ran out of ideas very fast. My post frequency quickly dropped off from weekly to bi-weekly to monthly to totally gone.
I then tried to add a weekly legal issue related post to the same blog. I got bored with that pretty fast, too. Then I had the idea to start a blog for moms who are going to school, building a career, or in some other way are trying to better themselves and improve their lives. So I did. It was called something like Moms on their Way. I kept that up for a few months and I did have some requests for free meal planning and grocery list spreadsheets I offered, but the lack of readership discouraged me so I quit.
Though my blogs had varying topics, the main purpose has always been to build a presence on the web and direct people back to my website. It took me awhile to realize my blog content should somehow relate to my business. This Wordsy Woman blog was born on April 12, 2012, shortly after I re-committed myself to my business and began the re-branding process into
Wordsy Woman Word Sales and Service. I decided that my blog, like my business, would cover the topic of words. This provided me with enough focus so I could find topics to cover in my blog posts and it was broad enough so that I should never run out of ideas. There are thousands of things one could write about words, even if it is simply pulling a word out of the dictionary and giving the definition (though, thankfully, I've not had to resort to that yet).
My first regular post was published on June 9, 2012, and I'm happy to say I've consistently published a new blog post every single week since then. I keep a list of possible blog post topics in my notebook and I cross them off as I cover them. My goal with my blog is to not only provide samples of my writing style and voice and show what I know about words and writing, but, most importantly, to provide value to my readers. Although it is therapeutic for me to sometimes ramble on about my random musings, it is not worth anything to the reader unless there is something instructive or a bit of helpful information included that they can take away from it.
People blog for many different reasons including to stay connected with their family and friends or to spread awareness about an important topic. My blog is a business blog; it is the goodwill help-people-say-what-they-want-to-say part of my business and a way, hopefully, I can help
anyone say what they want to say and not just those that pay me. My advice for anyone wanting to start a blog to complement or promote their business is to provide value and pick a general topic related to your business that is broad enough so you have a wealth of post topics. Of course, include links to your own website and any others you've referenced in the post, but do not include sales pitches. Another bit of advice that I find difficult to follow because of the nature of my posts, is to include photographs as much as possible. Above all, think information and you will be able to build a blog readership which can do nothing but help your business.
Do you have your own business blogging advice? Please feel to share it in the comment field below.
Happy Blogging!
The
Wordsy Woman
