Corporate Blogs

July 26^th 2012 Sally Ormond blogging for business, corporate blogs

Who said corporate blogs have to be boring?

Well someone must have at some point because most of them are. They’re filled with posts that are long, tedious and incredibly boring. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The act of blogging in itself will help companies:

Boost their SEO and link building
Position themselves as market leaders
Provide great customer service

But only if their content is interesting, accessible and not full of jargon.

What follows are 12 pointers to help you create an interesting and readable blog for your company.

1. Personal

It’s important that your personality comes through in your blog posts. Write in the second person so you make a connection with your reader.

Make sure the stuff you write about is actually what your readers want to see. Don’t forget just because something interests you, doesn’t mean it’s going to interest them. Place yourself in their shoes and create informative posts they will want to read.

2. Techy

Never, ever allow jargon to slip into your posts. If it’s absolutely necessary to use a technical term, make sure you define it - never assume the knowledge level of your readers.

If you stick to plain English that is simply written, you won’t go too far wrong.

3. Length

Blogs are usually coffee time reading, so make sure your posts aren’t exceedingly lengthy. Round about 400-1000 words is plenty. If yours goes beyond that, why not split into 2?

4. Scan

Regardless of how many hours you spent writing it, people are probably only going to scan your post. That’s why you should use sub headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs to help your reader dip in and out to find the information they want.

5. Interesting

If your post is boring, mundane and reading it is like walking through treacle, people aren’t going to read it. Make sure it’s interesting.

6. And the winner is…

Sorry, you’re not writing for an award, so forget using incomprehensible language that you think makes you sound intelligent (it doesn’t). Stick with simple language and simple sentences.

7. Headings

Your headline must be strong, eye-catching and compelling enough to make someone stop and read. But it doesn’t stop there; your first paragraph must also grab them and drawn them in.

8. SEO

Although you should be using your keywords within your posts to help their online visibility, you mustn’t over stuff them. Using them in your headings and sub headings, with one or two in your body text, will be enough.

9. Show not tell

Although your blog is a promotional tool, continually banging on about how great you are will be a complete turn-off. You have to be far more subtle than that. Highlight your services and the benefits your customers gain through the use of case studies that focus on the issue your customers had and how your product/service helped them.

10. Variety

Your readers will enjoy a variety of posts, so mix them up a bit with ‘how to’ guides, top tips, industry news, opinions, case studies etc.

11. Images

Using images in your posts will help draw your readers’ eye, add interest to the post and boost its aesthetic appeal. Just make sure they’re relevant to the content.

12. Call to action

If you’ve taken the time to write the post, you might as well get something out of it. Add a call to action, whether its directing to your website for more information, signing up to your newsletter or RSS feed, or even just leaving a comment.

So you see, corporate blogs shouldn’t be boring. They’re there to: