Defining your professional blogging voice takes time and practice—a lot of both, actually. If you are getting your business blogging feet wet, consider these tips to help develop a blogging voice for your business that your readers and, hopefully, your customers appreciate.
Research the blogosphere in your industry.
Using keyword phrases specific to your industry, do a
Google Blog search to see how your competitors blog. Notice which blogs provide valuable information for the reader and which blogs only write fluffy content to promote themselves. The larger companies most likely use professional writers to blog, so take note of their content as well (outsourcing blog writing is an option for you too, of course.). By assessing your vertical online, you can make a conscious decision on the style of writing you would like publish online.
Decide on a handful of blog topic themes.
Yes, planning can be a drag, but planning will help you refine your blogging voice.
How?
Because you can think in terms of what’s important to your readers and write accordingly. For example, if you were a divorce lawyer, you could write a series of posts about finding a lawyer. More specifically, you could write a post titled “Top 10 questions to ask a prospective lawyer.” Not only will this get you search engine traffic from people seeking a divorce lawyer, but it will position your firm as a trustworthy and knowledgeable resource.
Before you start blogging, sit down and decide on the topics that your clients want to know more about. Don’t stop there. Create a schedule for these posts and follow it.
Think of yourself as a publishing company.
In today’s online business world, every company can be a publishing company. Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman in the book
Content Rules outline the ways you can publish online content (through blogs, white papers, podcasts, etc.) and how that will better your business—we couldn’t agree more. If you only read one business book this year, make this the one.
Blog as you speak.
If you have a hard time writing, record yourself speaking about a particular topic and have it transcribed (you can find someone on eLance.com to do this for you or you can use software such as Dragon Speech Recognition Software). It’s much easier to edit what’s already on paper rather than starting at a blank page.
Be yourself.
Your customers and readers will visit your blog as a result of the helpful information you provide and because they like
you. This means that you can’t get bogged down in jargon or marketing speak and that you need to reveal a bit about yourself in your blog. You can do this by writing in first person, sharing your opinions, or personal information (within certain limits, of course).
Over time and with a well-thought-out strategy, your blogging voice will come naturally. However, if you don’t have the time to create that strategy or write the posts, don’t fret.
Lasso Up can help. Contact us to learn about our blog development and blog writing services
Creative Commons Photo Attribution: Loud!; by Lejo
