What to Blog About

In my previous guest blogs for The Last Hurdle, I’ve given my views on how to get your blog started, what it can do for you, and how to construct individual articles for best effect. In this blog article I want to return to the matter of individual articles for a very crucial point; what to blog about.

Hopefully, having established the basics of your business blog, you’ll be brimming with ideas on what to blog about. However, as with many aspects of blogging, a structured approach is often the best one to take.

This blog: What to Blog About is split into two main parts. The first discusses a few of the more general concepts you can use as the foundation for generating blog posts. These should be relevant to any business, no matter what area or market it serves.

Following on from this, the second part of the article details a simple and effective way of helping you decide what to blog about – the practice of categorising your blogs under overarching themes.

General Concepts for Business Blog Posts

We now turn our attention to a number of concepts for what to blog about as a business. No matter what your line of work, these article hooks should provide a solid core of ideas that you can mine for best effect, shaping them to best fit the needs of your specific business activities.

What to Blog About - Individual Product and Service Showcases

One of the most straightforward concepts for business blogging is to create blog articles focusing on a single product or service that your business provides. A ‘Product/Service of the Week’ slot can provide a good basis for when you are deciding what to blog about.

They should be relatively simple to create and can also form a tool in themselves to help keep your blog topped up with regular new content. This allows you to focus more of your creative efforts on other pieces, confident that your blog won’t grind to a halt while you’re thinking of new ideas.

You can treat such articles as an effective marketing exercise. They will allow you to go into more detail about a given product or service than might be possible in its ‘About’ section on your website, which often by definition has to be more ‘generalist’ in scope.

Rather than employing a ‘hard sell’ approach, you can use a blog article to focus on the relevance or applications of a particular product or service to real-world situations. If you make or supply cookware, for instance, you can write an article on how these products are useful when creating particular recipes – perhaps including the relevant recipe as an example of giving useful information to your audience for free, as I discussed in one of my previous blogs.

What to Blog About - Customer Testimonials

When deciding what to blog about, another dependable theme for articles is user and customer testimonials. These are of particular relevance if your business provides a service that may be quite physically intangible, but obviously this is an effective tool for physical products as well.

Inviting satisfied customers to provide testimonial pieces for your business’ products or services is a great way to interact with your audience. It helps establish a sense that you are having a conversation with, rather than simply talking ‘at’, them.

In a practical sense, testimonials are also a good thing as they effectively ‘write themselves’. Your customers are effectively creating blog posts for you. As with product and service focus blogs, these can provide a good source of positive new material for regular postings while you focus your energies on what else to blog about, especially pieces that may require more effort and time.

What to Blog About - Business-Specific ‘Outside’ Topics

Another good concept for articles is a focus on outside issues that may be relevant to your business or customers. For example, regulatory changes, such as may happen to gas and electricity installation safety standards, may impact on how you provide products and services.

Choosing to blog about such issues is a good way of drawing attention to them. Furthermore, blog posts will allow you to go into detail on exactly how such matters may or may not be relevant to either your service provision, or the way in which customers interact with your business and/or the products or services it supplies.

What to Blog About – Associated Services or Activities

Lastly, when deciding what to blog about, you should also consider the oblique approach. By this I mean blogging about activities or other matters that the products or services you offer are relevant to. For example, if you run a private hire taxi company, you might create a blog about places of interest or highlights of the nightlife in the area or areas that your business serves.

As well as being another way to foster goodwill with your audience by providing something of value for free, this is also another good means of promoting your business through focusing on how it is useful to customers in everyday situations. In the case of the example detailed, you would want to say in your blog how much better a night out will be if the reader uses one of your taxis to get to and from a venue, saving the trouble of parking up and the inconvenience of having to nominate a designated driver.

Creating Categories

We now turn our attention to the usefulness of categories for your blog. When you start producing articles, I find that it is best to establish a number of categories that are relevant to your business, under which you can then group your articles. For example, on my own blog, the two major categories I employ are ‘writing’ – my profession – and ‘wargames’ – also a large part of my profession, and a subject which I’m passionate about.

Creating categories provides a great help in establishing what to blog about for your business in two ways. First, category tags allow visitors to your blog to find pieces relevant to them much more quickly, without having to trawl through articles in which they have no interest.

However, categories are also a useful tool for when you are deciding what to blog about in the first place. Using them provides a way to focus your creative energy when you may be a little stuck for ideas. Rather than going for the spatter-gun approach, which may result in a lot of interesting but incomplete bits of inspiration crowding your mind, you can pick a single relevant category and develop one or two concepts into better and fully-formed articles.

Of course, a blog post doesn’t have to fall into just one category. A single piece may be relevant to several different areas. Often you may discover this after you’ve completed an article, so make sure you review all of your pieces to see if this is the case.

To conclude, when deciding what to blog about, make sure you consider concepts and categories to give some order and focus to your blog articles. It is very tempting to simply dive straight in when you’re bursting with ideas. But in the long run, having these guidelines to rely on will help you continue to produce relevant material regularly for your blog even at those times when you think you might run out of steam.

Why not try some of these methods and see if they help you improve the regularity and content of your blog?

The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~ Social Media Marketing ~ Networking

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

Thursday 20th June at 4pm

You are cordially invited to attend The Last Hurdle Big Birthday Bash!

The time is fast approaching… it will soon be The Last Hurdle’s Birthday!

Last year we celebrated by hosting an informal Networking event with all proceeds going to local charities… it was so popular we decided to do it again. We had about 40 businesses attend throughout the afternoon – with your help we can top that this year!

Our venue: we have teamed up with The George Row Club (Northampton and County Club) who will be providing the delicious BBQ and a welcome drink. Enjoy a glass of Pimms  Beer or a soft drink, mingle, network & help us to raise funds!

Once again we will be supporting a local charity, The Lighthouse Centre. Let’s help these volunteers out!

Tickets for this event are £18 per person with all proceeds donated to The Lighthouse Centre. To order your tickets simply email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk or complete the form below let us know how many tickets you need and we will generate an invoice for you with payment instructions – easy!

The Lighthouse Centre is a complementary therapy unit offering holistic therapies for people with long term conditions and cancers in their own home. The centre is patient orientated with the patients needs at the centre of any therapy or treatment that is prescribed.

The Lighthouse Centre is run by nurses and health care staff who have a wealth of experience behind them to ensure that the best possible treatment is identified and given to each patient with the patient’s personal needs at the centre of any treatment chosen.

Our aim is to provide holistic treatments to patients with long term medical conditions or cancers to support their quality of life during a time of vulnerability.

BBB 2012 Sarah & Sylvia at last years event

We will be raising additional funds on the day by raffling or auctioning donated prizes.

Last year we had a terrific response and I am sure we can duplicate that again this year!

Want to help? Get in touch! Email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk and tell us what you would like to donate as a raffle or auction item.

You can book your tickets by completing the form below, once received we will send you an invoice with payment instructions.

Raffle Prizes

Kindly donated by local businesses we have the following to be raffled off during the afternoon:

Spring Clean from Time For You Northants

[contact-form]

How To Increase Blog Traffic

By now, you should have established a blog for your business, hopefully having been helped by my last guest blogs. You’re bursting with ideas for articles with which to fill it, but you’re concerned – fewer people are reading your blog than you’d like. If you think this is an issue, then you’re quite right.

Why should you try to increase blog traffic? The answer is straightforward – your blog is a window for the online world to see your business, its brand, products and services. The more you increase blog traffic, the more people are looking through that window and the greater the chance that you will gain more business from interested parties.

So, the second question now is, how can you increase blog traffic? There are some simple but effective steps you can take.

Increase Blog Traffic – Make Yourself Visible: Online visibility is the key to increasing blog traffic. Your blog can be chock-full of the best content, but that content must been seen. To get your business blog’s message across, you must make it visible to internet searchers.

You can submit your blog to internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Dogpile and Bing.  Although not guaranteed to increase blog traffic, doing so will make it more likely that your pages will appear in searches made using that engine.

Submitting your best individual articles to website bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Reddit or Digg will also help increase blog traffic. Linking your material to these sites using relevant categorisation will make it more likely that interested users will come across your blog.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can further improve your visibility. This involves incorporating key words and phrases used for internet searches into you blog content.

Doing so makes it more likely that your blog will appear on the first page of internet searches that use those words or phrases. Don’t overdo this, however, or you risk your material being classified as ‘spam’ – valueless content – and removed.

Connecting your blog to other social media services will also help increase blog traffic. LinkedIn is the obvious choice to link to, since it is purpose-built for business interests, but you shouldn’t neglect other options.

Facebook is the largest and most popular social media site, and linking to it can give your blog exposure to a huge audience. Linking to other social media resources such as Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ will also contribute to increasing blog traffic.

You should also promote your blog outside the internet. Display it prominently in all the other media that you use such as business cards and brochures. Remember to make others aware of it in face-to-face contact, as any positive visibility helps increase blog traffic. Think outside the box!

Increase Blog Traffic – Presentation: Your blog is primarily a visual medium. When writing articles, it can be easy to forget how the final piece will look when it’s on a visiting searcher’s screen.

No matter how engaging you content is, few things are more off-putting than an unbroken wall of text. Remember the rapid-fire nature of the internet – you have to make an impression within the first few seconds.

Well-laid out content will help to increase blog traffic. Do your best to make your blog look interesting. Employ attractive colours and insert pictures that are relevant to individual articles. Remember to tag and describe your pictures as these will appear in search engines and can lead people to your blog.

Make sure your blog’s headings and taglines are eye-catching. In short, think like a newspaper editor – the pages of a blog should work on the same principles. However, be careful not to do this at the expense of clarity. You should still want to make a point with your blog, and disorientating your readers will not help to increase blog traffic.

Another way to catch and hold people’s attention is to use excerpts on your blog’s front page. Someone confronted by a single article might leave if it doesn’t interest them. If links to multiple articles are easily visible, visitors are more likely to find something relevant, and increase blog traffic with return visits.

Increase Blog Traffic – Define and Interact With Your Audience: Defining your desired audience and what you want to say to them is also effective means to increase blog traffic. This is especially important for a business blog, since you want to be writing for your likely customer base. Moreover, having a strong focus will allow you to establish your business as an expert in its field.

Acquiring a reputation for expert knowledge can greatly help increase blog traffic. Visitors are more inclined to develop loyalty towards your brand, and recommend your business to others.

Don’t just use your blog to talk at your readers. Establishing a dialogue with new and existing customers is a great means to increase blog traffic. Find out what their concerns and desires are, and use your blog to explain how and what your business can do to resolve or fulfil them.

Be friendly and approachable, and people will respond, especially if they feel they are getting something of value for free. Again, this all contributes to the kind of positive reputation that can increase blog traffic.

You can also increase your blog traffic by acting proactively outside of it. Seek out and comment on other blogs relevant to your business. You should view this as a continuation of business networking – potentially a highly effective practice, since everyone involved shares a common interest.

Join web forums or discussion groups relevant to your business and become an active participant. LinkedIn especially is a good resource, but you should also search out more on the wider internet.

All of this links back to growing your visibility online, which is the key to help you increase blog traffic. So why not give some of these methods a go? Your blog is a window for the wider world to see your business. To increase your blog traffic is to invite more people to look through it.

The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~ Social Media Marketing ~ Networking ~ SEO ~ Keyword Research

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

Interesting Twitter Stats for the UK!
Is your target market represented?

Years ago if you wanted to reach this kind of audience you would have to pay a tidy sum for a TV commercial or a spread in a glossy magazine which would also cost a small fortune. I still marvel that we have the ability to reach so many with our message and yet these social media resources are free for all to use… changing marketing and business development, whether it is for the better I shall leave you to debate.

Does Your Website Load Fast Enough?

In this blog we talk about driving traffic to your website, using social media, blogs and links etc. But what happens if people ‘bounce’ back out. This can have a negative effect on your organic rankings in the search engines. As you can see from the infographic you have a handful of seconds before your impatient audience leaves the site, usually for good.

If you have spent a lot of time and effort on the content of your website, are making all the right online marketing choices, blogging regularly then it makes sense to ensure your website loads fast enough to retain those visitors you have painstakingly gathered.

Does Your Website Load Fast Enough?

If your website is slow to load, contact your web developer and find out why this would be, it maybe you have overly large images slowing things down, or it could be that you have not allowed enough hosting space… in fact their are a number of reasons why your website might not load quickly, seems a shame to let your online marketing fail for something that can be a relatively easy fix.

Contact The Last Hurdle if you need assistance with your online marketing, we will happily conduct a website review. Does Your Website Load Fast Enough?

*Infographic by Jade Thomas, Copyright The Last Hurdle, 2013.

The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~ Social Media Marketing ~ Networking

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

Here is our tag cloud, a map of the UK made from our own keywords and services:

The Last Hurdle Tag Cloud

 A simple idea, but very effective!

How can you apply this to your business? If you are a baker, you might want a giant cupcake made up of your products or maybe you work in IT and the image could be of a laptop. Insurance industry, perhaps a car shaped tag cloud with all your motor insurance related benefits. With these simple designs you are only limited by your imagination… What shape would your tag cloud be?

The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~ Social Media Marketing ~ Networking

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

 Facebook UK Population Infographic

Facebook and it’s use have grown exponentially over the last few years, not only a sociable way for immediate contact with friends, family and loved ones, Facebook is also an invaluable tool for business use.

Whether you are B2B or B2C a proportion of your target market can be reached through Facebook. Take a look at the stats and see if your markets are there…

Infographic courtesy of Jade Thomas (Trainee Graphic Designer for The Last Hurdle)

How to Start a Blog

by Franco Sammarco

How to start a blog must surely be one of the most commonly-asked questions among people seeking to establish a web presence. It was certainly foremost in my mind when I decided to start a blog.

For a business, a blog is potentially a powerful tool with many different uses. However, to start a blog can seem like a rather intimidating task, especially if you are coming into the process for the first time.

Luckily, the internet at large is a rich source of inspiration on how to start a blog. However, it also contains so many different ideas on this subject, almost all of them valid in some way. It is a good idea, therefore, to think about several factors before you begin planning how to start a blog.

How to Start a Blog – What is a Blog?

The first matter to consider is one that is so simple that it is often overlooked – what is a blog? The term ‘blog’ has by now been part of the internet lexicon for so long that it seems to be assumed more often than not to be self-explanatory. However, this is not always the case, especially for newcomers looking to start a blog.

The term ‘blog’ is simply a convenient contraction of ‘web log’. In more conventional terms, a blog is essentially an online journal.

It is a repository of articles, most often known as ‘entries’, pertaining to whatever interests and/or opinions the creator of the blog feels strongly enough about to devote time and effort to writing.

Understanding this basic principle is of key importance when looking at how to start a blog – it is nothing to be afraid of.

How to Start a Blog – What Do I Blog?

Having defined what a blog is, the second factor to think about when you start a blog is deciding what form your blog is going to take, and what function it will serve for you and your business.

In my opinion, this is simultaneously the most exciting and intimidating aspect of how to start a blog and for the same reason – how you start a blog is entirely up to you. That is, there are no ‘right’ answers to these questions, except the ones that you make for yourself.

A blog can be an enormously effective communication tool for your business for everything from marketing products and services to acting as point of contact for customer feedback. A blog is often a good way of ‘humanising’ a business, which can help in establishing brand loyalty.

How you define your blog in terms of tone and content depends upon a number of factors. What is the nature of your business? What kind of audience do you want to attract? What objectives do you want your blog to help your business to achieve?

All of these things are entirely up to you when looking at how to start a blog. However, the best thing about blogging is the sheer flexibility it offers. You can continually edit and refine the style and tone of your blog until you find the combination that works for you.

How to Start a Blog – Content, the Solid Core

No matter what reason or idea you have for starting a blog, engaging content is the key to attracting an audience and holding their attention.

I use my F.A.S.T method, detailed in my previous blog post, to generate content. One thing that you should always ensure is that you write engaging content. I find that one of the best rules of thumb for this is how you feel when writing.

If an article is feeling like a chore to put down, it is highly likely that the reader will find it equally hard going to get through, and will leave your page. Conversely, if you’re feeling very engaged in the writing process and/or enjoy what you are doing, this will almost certainly come across in your work and lead to equally engaged and enthusiastic readers.

It is also a good idea not to work in isolation. One of the best ways to get new ideas for content when thinking of how to start a blog is to follow and read other established blogs, especially those focused on the same kind of subjects, materials and issues that you want to include when looking at how to start a blog.

How to Start a Blog – Persistence, Keeping Things Moving 

After you have studied how to start a blog and put so much effort into actually doing it, don’t let it die! Once you’ve gotten it up and running, try to ensure that you have new material to post at least once or twice a week.

You can’t afford to rest on your laurels when you start a blog. An active blog will garner readers and followers, but there’s a lot of choice out there, and followers may quickly lose interest if a blog goes without updates for too long.

However, it’s best to follow a pattern of steady updates, as if your blog is a conventional magazine or journal. This will give your audience the opportunity to add reading your blog to their routine, and heighten anticipation for your next missive. Erratic posting routines, especially just when you start a blog, can be as off-putting for readers as total inactivity, and could lead to a ‘failure to launch’.

Finally, get to writing and start a blog! As important as forward planning is, it is also best not to over-think everything before starting. As I said, the best thing about blogging is the ability it gives you in editing and refining your style and content over time.

So there you have my brief guide on how to start a blog. Just about any business can benefit from blogging, so why not try it out? And do let us know how useful you found this How to Start a Blog article!

The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~  Social Media Marketing ~ Networking ~ SEO ~ Keyword Research

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

Although I enjoy enthusing about my business and sharing my passion, when it comes to blogging it is part of a much bigger whole, there is a much bigger picture.

I shall elaborate. For me when I write a blog or even when I seek a guest blogger I have a variety of motives for doing so.

The first, my online marketing has worked very well in fact 86% of our business in the first year came from social media and I have won business on the back of a blog and so it makes sense to continue to spread our good word.

Second, blogging is an integral part of our SEO campaign, utilising keywords and phrases my keyword research tells me are winnable and implementing them in a blog. I find that our keyword research results can provide some much needed inspiration.

Third we know people need to be ‘touched’ I prefer ‘reached’ a number of times before they buy from you, a blog is a great way to stay at the fore front of my connections minds.

Fourth, I love to share the knowledge, It costs very little and if it helps someone out then that gives me warm fuzzy feelings which are not to be under estimated in importance, we all need to feel validated from time to time.

Fifth, it gives me an excellent platform to have a rant. Something I try not to do too often but it does allow me to let off steam. In a professional manner of course.

Those are my reasons to blog, what are yours? Are you as focused with your reasons why?

I find the same applies with all forms of marketing, you have to have a clear plan as to what you want to achieve from your blog, make sure it ties in with all your other marketing campaigns and of course the all-important SEO consideration.

My five reasons why I blog. What are yours?

Jules White

 The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~  Social Media Marketing ~ Networking ~ SEO ~ Keyword Research

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk

Social Media or a sandwich?

Would you stroll through your local town with a sandwich board with profanities, swear words, abuse etc? No? The only difference between posting to a social media site and the sandwich board is the internet comments will be there for far longer and will have a far wider reach. If you do not want these messages to be seen by a future employer, a future client or any relationship you would wish to make a good impression on, I urge you to clean up your social media accounts!

 The Last Hurdle ~ Northampton ~ Towcester ~ Milton Keynes ~ Business Development ~ Sales ~ Marketing ~  Social Media Marketing ~ Networking ~ SEO ~ Keyword Research

T: 01327 359908 E: sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk