14 Easy Content Ideas For Your Small Business Blog

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 newcorridor

Coming up with good content ideas for your small business blog is a challenge for most people starting out. Unless you’re already a prolific writer, sitting down and cranking out interesting and relevant content for your blog on a regular basis doesn’t exactly come naturally for most of us.

Creating a steady flow of blog posts is really not as difficult as most people make it.

First, a little refresher on your blog writing approach for your small business.

Your blog is not a personal diary. That would be a personal blog. This is a business blog.
But do keep the style more conversational and offer a personal touch. You don’t want your business blog tone to sound like a research textbook. The traditional business writing style is too formal in most cases and will bore your readers.
Long, detailed blog posts (more than 700 words) are fine and you need a few of these thrown in, but this doesn’t need to be your standard practice. Here’s a better approach that works well. Confine your longer, more detailed post 2 to 3 times per month, and keep the rest of your more frequent posts short, comfortable, and easy to digest in a smaller 500 word or less format. This also means the bulk of your blog posts will be easier and simpler to knock out.
I’m going to assume that you’re interested in your business and the industry you’re in. Honestly, if you don’t have any passion for your business, you really might want to think about doing something else. If you’ve been in your business for any length of time, I’m going to also assume that you’ve acquired a level of skill and expertise (this is actually unavoidable if you are managing to survive in your business). It’s perfectly acceptable to share these interests and experiences. Don’t be modest about establishing your expertise and authority.

Ideas for your blog posts.

Let’s get specific and talk about a few ideas and techniques that really can provide an unlimited stream of good topics and content for your small business blog.

New products: Any time you are introducing new products, you have plenty of fertile ground to create meaningful blog posts. Are you adding a new product? Make the announcement, tell us why you chose this product, what are the benefits to the customers who buy the product.
Discontinued products: If you’re discontinuing a product, tell us why. Providing insight as to why a product might be inferior, or no longer fits your business, or has become difficult to find suppliers … this is all interesting to your readers. This provides product insight and establishes that you are “in the know”.
Hot products: Tell your readers about hot products that customers are buying in greater demand. This is obviously just good marketing and promotion, but also interesting information to your customers and prospects.
Promotions: A blog post is in order for each and every promotion that you undertake. In fact, you should try and create a promotion every month, and more frequently if appropriate. Another opportunity is to share the results of a promotion. Your customers like the validation and this can often spur additional sales.
Customers and prospects: Your customers and prospects are one of the best and most important sources for ideas and subjects that you want to discuss on your blog. Share feedback, problems, questions, concerns, and testimonials. And demonstrate how you listen to your customers and solve their problems. Do be careful to protect your customer’s privacy. You don’t need to refer to anyone by their full name, a general reference works best.
Surveys and questions: Along the same track, make it a regular practice to post a question or survey to your readers and customers. This makes your blog more interactive and the feedback will amaze you. In fact, this feedback will easily become the subject matter for more blog posts.
Industry insights: If you are serious about your business, you read about your industry on a regular basis. Your customers are interested in your perspective on industry trends, advancements, challenges, events, etc. Your blog gives you a vehicle to share your personal insight on these industry topics. This is a definite opportunity to promote your authority. And your reader will be interested. This is easily a source for at least one blog post a week.
Personal experiences that relate to your business: Share your story and your personal experiences as it relates to your business. This is a great vehicle to provide additional insight with a personal touch to your readers. For example, if you encountered a particular problem or challenge in your business that you needed to solve, tell the story. Put it in a perspective that demonstrates how you improved your business which is a benefit to your customers. It gives people a sense of “who is behind your business”. If you believe you’re customers and readers aren’t interested, you need to rethink this one. Again, don’t over-do the “personal diary” angle. Keep these anecdotal stories on topic and pertinent to your business. But bring out the human interest side.
Wins and Failures: Similar to the personal experiences, talk about your wins and failures. Your wins help you promote your business, how you are growing and building your business. Your customers and readers are glad to share in your success. After all, this only validates that they made the right choice to do business with you. The failures give you an opportunity to demonstrate that you are a problems solver, a survivor and there is a capable operator running your business. The failures also give you the opportunity to share how you’ve strengthened your business which turns out to be a positive reason why people want to do business with you.
Seasonal topics: There is usually something seasonal about every business. Product promotions that pertain to holidays is one obvious opportunity. But there are many more opportunities when you think about it. Winter is time to “replace the heater filters”. Depending on your business, Summer is a good time for an “oil change”, or “Summer recipes”, “Summer air conditioning maintenance” or “Summer vacations”. January is a good time to “revisit insurance policies”, “weddings in June”, “back to school in September”, “weight control, exercise and gyms in January after the holidays”, and so on. Seasonal trends in the stock market, and so on. Can’t think of a seasonal idea for your business? Post a comment below and see if we can come up with something for you.
Talk about an employee: Do you have an employee win or success you can share? Best to keep this positive, don’t air your dirty laundry. But this is a great opportunity to share stories about your terrific staff, superior customer service, and how your employees help make your business great. Which will be of interest to your customers and prospects looking for reasons why your company is a good choice to do business with. And this builds great morale for your employees as well. Everyone likes to be acknowledged for a job well done.
Trade shows and seminars: Do you attend trade shows and seminars in your industry. Share some insight about what you’ve learned. Discuss the latest industry trends. This is an opportunity to promote your authority in your industry and why you are one of the “go-to people”. People will appreciate that you stay on top of the latest developments and have a commitment to continually grow and expand your knowledge and training as it pertains to your business. Another chance to validate that “doing business with your company is the best choice”.
Technology that applies to your business: If you like technology, take the opportunity to share how you apply technology to improve your business operation. Often, the technology automation creates a better customer experience, so go ahead and talk about this. Technology also makes your business more efficient which is a positive business strength you should share with your customers and readers.
Other blogs and web sites: Visit other blogs and web sites within your industry. See something interesting, go ahead and share with your readers. Explain why you think the topic is interesting, what you like about the author’s perspective, what you agree with, what you don’t agree with. If it’s another blog, use a trackback, or leave a comment on the blog post as a reference back to your blog. This will help drive traffic to your blog as well. Your blog doesn’t always have to be about you and your business. Your readers will appreciate your willingness to share this additional insight. It demonstrates that you’re plugged in. This one source is good for at least one blog post per week. Worried about sending your readers to your competition? Then be sure to choose related subjects in your industry that aren’t necessarily your direct competitors. It’s a big world out there, there is plenty to draw from.

Keep it simple

That should be enough sources for content to keep your ideas for blog posts flowing on a continual basis. Remember, keep it simple. You don’t need to make every blog post a masterpiece. Keep many of your posts on the informal side, and your readers will appreciate the easy reading.

Here’s another tip. Keep a notepad handy and jot down your ideas for your blog posts as soon as they come to you, wherever you are. Do you like technology? Use a personal memo recorder. If you put yourself in the right frame of mind, ideas will come to you at any time in many situations. Don’t trust all these great ideas to memory. Jot them down.

Don’t get stuck on the next blog post for your small business. If your having trouble with a particular subject or post, put it aside and start another post that may come more easily for you.

The most important think is that you publish a steady supply of content on a predictable schedule.

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