What’s the Point? Why Your Business Blog Needs Focus.
If Your Business Blog isn’t Focused, How Will Your Customers Find You?
My blog didn’t start as a business blog. Like many bloggers without a strategy or plan, when I started my blog I just wanted a little spot on the internet to share my voice. I was blogging as a way to connect to the people in my life, share stories of parenthood, and tell anyone who would listen what I thought about local happenings.
- I wrote about my husband and why he’s so important to me.
- I wrote about a necklace I made for my grandmother and the symbolism behind it.
- I wrote about miscellaneous distractions keeping me from focusing my energy into something more productive.
- I wrote about the countless times my Big Sis has come to my rescue.
- I wrote about my first (and only) experience with a shot gun.
- I wrote about the Chicken Pox, my tonsillectomy, Play Pumps International, and my sister’s tattoo.
I wrote about EVERYTHING and ANYTHING I wanted to. I even got paid to write blog posts.
Slowly, over time, it became clear to me that my spot on the internet needed to evolve from a place where I share my thoughts about everything to a place that needs a focus.
Give Your Business Blog a Purpose So Your Readers Know What to Expect.
Don’t get me wrong, I had lots of people reading my blog. Commenting too. Most of the people reading and engaging with me through my blog were friends and family. Or people I’d met in my community as a result of my blog. Like JessieX and the man behind Columbia Compass and the good lady of Dinosaur Mom Chronicles. Having a local connections was fantastic. And it is through them that I began to understand the importance of having a focus, a central topic for which I would write about, a general theme.
But I didn’t know what that should be.
So I stopped writing with any sort of regularity. The result was that I started to lose the connection with my readers.
And that wasn’t good either. In the absence of a clear focus for my blog, and without forcing myself to declare one, I stopped writing all together.
Use Your Business Blog to Tell Stories Your Audience Will Relate Too.
Part of why I stopped writing was because I thought that to have a business blog meant that I couldn’t talk about my family or the events of my life. I thought I needed to write as though my reader would picture me in a business suit sitting behind a desk, holding a cup of hot decaf while I composed my latest entry. I’ve been out of the traditional working world for over 7 years now, and don’t even remember what it’s like to have an office to go to each day. Because today my office is often the leather couch in my living room or the table in the kitchen.I share my office with a 5-year-old who, if given the choice, would spend his day playing Lego Star Wars and not reading me something from the Bob Books collection.
But, what I’ve come to realize is that people like stories they can relate to. People like to have a sense that they understand the person behind the veil of the blog, to know there is a human being on the other side of the virtual connection.
This is me. And this is my business blog, a place where I will share tips, techniques, and ways you can use your business blog to strengthen your online brand, develop relationships, and grow your business. And for my readers who want more of what this blog started as, I’m working on a couple other spots on the web where you can learn even more about my family and parenthood adventures and read about my thoughts on local community events. Stay tuned for links to where you can find those stories.
For now, I end this post as my 5 year-old sets out to read me “A New Roof” by Carrie Meister. What a very cheerful and pleasant office mate!
