How do I start blogging?

Blogging can seem like a big and scary jump for your business. You might think it's too time-consuming or not worth the effort. But the information you can offer your customers is priceless and builds your reputation as an industry expert. 

Expert status is important for many reasons. When potential customers decide to stalk you. Supports a higher price tag. Gives you bonus visibility.

I do want to say. Don’t start blogging unless you are prepared to give it a red-hot crack. You don’t want to be a blog that hasn’t been updated in 18 months. 

CREATE A LIST OF TITLES/HEADLINES
I think a list of titles is a fantastic place to start. It will give you direction when the time comes to sit down and write. 
I personally make a list of all the blogs I want to write for the year and then write them when inspiration hits.

USE CONTENT YOU'VE ALREADY WRITTEN
Any flyers or "how to's" or emails to customers that you've already got circulating are excellent topics for blogs! You can utilise the bulk of these editorials and messages and then just fine-tune them for a blog.

LOOK AT YOUR BEST-PERFORMING CONTENT
This is a bit sneaky, but go through your socials and look at the content with the highest engagement and highest reach even. These posts show that your audience is interested in whatever that piece of content was, so it stands to reason it will likely perform really well as a blog. 
You can go a step further and use the caption or video content as the framework for the entire blog.

ANSWER YOUR CUSTOMERS' QUESTIONS
This is a very easy place to start. You're customers probably ask you questions or want your advice every single day. You just need to take this information that you already give out and write it down. 

DESCRIBE WHAT NOT TO DO
If you often see mistakes or people doing the wrong thing in your line of work, it's is a great thing to highlight in blogs. If you're a hardware store "how not to paint furniture" might be a comical yet informative blog that your customers will love! These are great blog topics to use when you think you've run out of ideas.

WRITE ON INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC TOPICS
Of course, you want to promote your business, but the best practice is 90% industry information and 10% sales/highlighting your own business. Blogs are meant to service your customers and help them grow in knowledge surrounding your industry. This will in turn help you grow your business as they gain more knowledge and understanding.

PICK A FREQUENCY AND STICK TO IT
It is probably unrealistic to try to blog every day. Add it to your editorial calendar and ensure you are able to do it in the time frame you commit to. If you can only manage a fortnightly blog post, that is okay! You just want to try to be consistent with your posts.

BATCH AND SCHEDULE
There is nothing to say you can’t batch-produce your blogging content and then schedule it like any other sort of social content. I personally write my blog content and then my lovely VA schedules it in accordance with a production schedule. It makes it sustainable for me because I’m not worrying about every single step of the process. 

PROMOTE IT
This is where the wheels often fall off. You’ve written a blog. Now what? Send it out to your email list. Post about it on socials. Share it in your favourite Facebook groups. If you dabble in Pinterest, start pinning away. 

REPURPOSE IT
Now you can actually reuse that hard-won content. Think about breaking it down into social posts. I actually wrote a blog here about repurposing content.