Business Blogging Enters the Main Stream
It seems that every business owner has a business blog or is getting a business blog. If you’re like many people business blogging presents a new problem. What is the best way to set up my blog to organize my articles? Here’s what I’ve found that works best.
How to setup your business blog:
What works best for your business blog, is a generalized layout used in most all print publications. Whether it’s a book, magazine or newspaper. Each part serving a specific purpose:
- The Title – Lets people know what your book is about – peaks interest and sells the book.
- The Section Names – Identify the Major Topics the Book Covers. (will this book solve my problems?)
- Chapters – Key Ideas within each topic. (How the book solves a specific aspect of a problem.)
- An Index (remember this is a Business Best Seller) – for quick reference/access.
Your Business Blog has the same parts with slightly different names.
- Blog Title is the same as your “book title“.
- Categories are the “section names“
- Article Titles/Post Titles are your “chapter titles“
- Tags are your “index words“.
Your Business Blog is your very own New York Times Bestselling Book is written for a specific audience the entire book speaks to and appeals to that audience. Everything from the title, section names, chapter titles and index words speak to one qudience.
In addition to your book’s/blog’s main content, there’s an introduction (about); contact page, appendices.
That’s it. Simple Chic Business Blogging that the search engines love and that your readers will subscribe too. In the process you develop yourself as an authority, expert and build your brand in support of getting more clients to buy your products and services…
Just like any printed publication, you want to name your blog, section names, chapter titles and tags in such a way to help your readers/visitors find the information that they want easily. You will also want to reinforce your USP, Personal Brand and Long Term Goals when setting up your blog.
My final thoughts are this. Your business blog will “attract your ideal clients”, if setup and configured within the greater context of your busienss. Most people get side tracked by the technical parts of setting up a blog and ignore the bigger picture of integrating your blog into your business mix in such a way as to “build your business” and not just be another something that you have “to-do”.
Terry Hall
Hi Terry
Great article. Thanks. Couple of quick questions – Can you give some general guidelines on:How many categories is too much? How many tags per blog entry is too much? What is the difference between a tag and a slug? These sound like bugs!
How/when to add more categories/tags?
Thanks for stopping by. Nice work on your blog @ http://sagelead.com/blog –
> How many categories is too many? That depends on You, Your Business & Your Blog… Categories help readers to navigate your blog to the information regarding their interests. For me, I typically recommend 8 to 12 descriptive categories directly related to my brand and niche markets… the serve to edify, promote and reference a site’s main content pages, often linking back to other interior pages of a website.
> How many tags? I recommend between 4 and 8 tags. Tags serve as a dynamic index of your site. You blog has a tags index that works much like the index of a book. When a tag is clicked on, your articles that have that same tag are listed dynamically. For me, it makes sense to use your article tags to pique interest and curiosity that has people see a tag and click it. Your Tags also serve as a SEO resource. When you write an article to attract people searching a specific phrase, you want to tag your article with that specific phrase.
> Tags & Slugs This is the topic of my next article so here is a preview. A tag is an index word or phrase. A “slug” is a term that is inserted into the URL for you particular article. As a general rule the “slug” for your article is the article post. I recommend that you “edit” that slug to be a specific “keyword phrase” that your audience is typing into Google.
> When to add tags: Tags are added to each article as needed and as necessary.
> When to add categories” I add categories only when my current category structure will not accommodate the article that I’m writing. The best way I can describe my thinking is to think about a Newspaper. A Newspaper has sections:
Front Page
Section 1
Sports
Lifestyle
Business
The Funnies
Classifieds
Want Ads/Classifieds
Editorial
Everyday of every week a newspaper fits all the world’s happenings into a fixed set of sections. My opinion is that your blog/dynamic website should have a similar layout and editorial policy. The result is that your readership will know where to look for their favorite topics.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Terry. My website is http://www.sagelead.com by the way – I think it was a typo!
So, I realize that I think I am reversing the tags and categories then. I have way too may tags. I have 18 tags and 4 categories…should I be reversing and condensing them? Sorry to say, I am still confused – remdial here!
Hi Susan, Thanks for pointing out the typo (bozo strikes again http://networkingisacontactsport.com/uncategorized/the-funny-side-of-typos/).
In your case, “Shaner on Leadership” is a Category, like a section of a newspaper or a chapter in a book. You will have more tags than Categories. In your case, resiliency, resilience, leadership, career transition are your tags. Tags are not unique or exclusive. You add tags to each article where they’re applicable.