As you look around the net today, you’re starting to see more and more people talking about the positive impact that your business blog can have on your search engine rankings. Some products are even starting to surface that claim to teach you all the tricks and tactics you need to successfully blog.

I was spurred to write this article because I’ve seen some of the “internet marketing crowd” starting to creep into the blogosphere. With that, the waters on the educational side of the blogosphere are getting a little muddy. So I wanted to help clear things up a bit and remove some of the B.S. on blogging floating around.

Don’t get me wrong — I certainly agree that a properly planned blog can work wonders for your Search Engine rankings. Boosting your search engine ranking with your business blog is an absolute fact. And it’s a pretty exciting thing when it happens to you!

But what the vast majority of people and products are missing is that there is more to a successful business blogging strategy than tricks, tactics, and formulas. There is no magic potion that’s going to transform you into a business blogging expert overnight, or rocket you to the top of the SE rankings.

Successful business blogging is about practice and experience combined with quality content, communication, and connection! (Not to mention a little accelerated knowledge that we’re about to give you through this article.)

After all, you can get yourself into the top 10 rankings on Google or Yahoo and start driving a ton of traffic to your blog or web site. But if that content is not of immediate value to the people that you’re driving there, all the traffic in the world will do you absolutely “no good”.

Many small business owners are making some serious mistakes as they stumble blindly into the blogosphere. The purpose of this article is to help you avoid those mistakes by sharing with you five critical keys to business blogging success in the form of an easy to remember acronym:

V.O.C.A.L.

V stands for VISION
O stands for ORGANIZED
C stands for CONSISTENCY
A stands for ACTIONABLE CONTENT
L stands for LISTEN-TO and LINK-WITH

Here are the five critical keys to a successful business blogging strategy in full detail.

“V” stands for VISION

You must have a clear vision for your business blog (or blogs.)

Why have a vision for what so many people just see as a tactic … something that many marketers see only as a method to get better search engine ranking? Well… quite frankly – because they’re dead wrong!

Search engine is just a beautiful side benefit. But it should not be the sole vision when setting up your blog for your business.

Your business blog is much more than just another marketing tool. If you’re going to seriously approach business blogging as an integral part of your business, you must treat it as such.

Would you ever launch a new profit center or open a new division to your business without having a clear vision for how it integrates into your over all business growth strategy?
Of course not!

If your business blog is going to be built to last — you need to view it as another support arm, another division of your company. With that mindset you’ll be able to develop a clear vision for your business blog. And you’ll be able to see how that vision correlates with, and integrates into, your overall Click-and-Mortar business growth strategy.

A well-defined vision will make it obvious to both you and your team exactly what your focus should be with your business blog. You’ll stay on track, dig deeper into your niche, and make the benefits of your business blog to your prospects and clients crystal-clear.

Call it what you want — vision, mission, purpose — you must have one for your business blog just like you must have one for your business.

“O” stands for ORGANIZED

Your vision is nothing without an organized plan of action. If you’ve already written down your vision for your business blog and integrated it with your overall business growth strategy – congratulations! You’re already ahead of 98.3% of the business owners who are currently blogging.

But only putting that vision on paper still makes the results you want to achieve a dream until you take additional action. To take your vision and transform it into a functional reality, you need an organized plan of action addressing three key areas.

1. What you need to learn.

Now that you’re aware of business blogging, and you have a clearly defined vision of how you’d like to see it fit into your business, you’ll probably identify a gap between what you want to achieve and what you currently know.

Getting started with blogging and using the technology is not difficult at all. But take a look at the tens of thousands of abandoned blogs out there and you’ll quickly see that it’s a little more to it than just getting started.

Beyond the basic technology, what are you unsure of? What would you feel more comfortable getting coaching, education, or guidance on before launching out into the blogosphere?

Now there are inevitably going to be some things that you need to know, but at this point — you probably don’t know that you need to know them. (Try saying THAT five times fast after having a glass of Merlot. Seriously though, that’s only to be expected and natural when learning anything new.

For now, you can start by writing out a list of the skills and education you know you need. Then get the information and/or education you need so that you can get rolling with your first business blog.

2. The navigational structure, layout, and linking strategy of your business blog.

What will your categories be? And how will you organize your content within a structure that’s attractive to both your human visitors and your search engine spider visitors?

What’s the layout, look, and feel that you want your business blog to have? You can have a “three column” or a “two column” homepage for your blog, with or without any type of external advertising like Google Ads or Amazon recommendations. Your permalink pages can have a “single wide column” or a “double column” layout.

How will your business blog be linked to your company’s web site? Will it be on the same domain, its own domain, or with a third-party hosting service?

All of these questions need answers in order for your business blogging to be a success. And the time to answer them and get organized is in your planning process.

3. Your schedule of content supply and blog maintenance.

Once you know what you need to know, you’ve learned it, and you’ve set up the structure of your blog — now you need to supply content and maintain your blog.

Your business blog will not work all by itself. So you need to plan now for the topics you’ll be covering, the style in which you’ll blog, and the frequency at which you’ll make your posts.

Once you’re organized and have a plan of action that you can follow through on, you’ve given yourself an unparalleled advantage over any competitor in your niche who tries to copy and catch up with what you’re doing. (Pretty nice, eh?)

“C” stands for CONSISTENCY

Just a few moments ago, we were looking at content supply and blog maintenance in reference to organization and planning. But when the rubber meets the road, nothing (other than the quality of your content) will determine your success more than consistency.

The people who visit your blog and are interested in your niche/focus want consistency. And the search engine spiders want to see consistency as well. Whatever pattern of posting your plan calls for, you must be consistent with that once you start blogging.

Hint: The frequency of your posts must be directly related to the rate at which your content can be digested. Give your readers too much information too fast and rather than being impressed, they’re likely to just get frustrated that they can’t keep up. Too little content delivered infrequently will be met with the same result.

Personally, when I sit down to write an article for one of our weekly columns or for one of our blogs, I usually end up pounding out 1,500 plus word articles pretty consistently. (I just can’t help myself. When I’m teaching a strategy, I want to give people the full picture, not just a tease of a strategy without any real “meat”.) So with that type of writing I like to post on alternating days to help our reader’s digest material and put it to use in bite size pieces.

You can use shorter posts more frequently, or a mix of longer articles peppered with a varying number of shorter “reference” posts. The bottom line is, you need a relative synergy between the length of your posts, the vision/purpose of your blog, and your frequency of posting.

No matter what your style is, and whatever coordinating posting schedule you come up with — make sure you’re consistent!

“A” stands for ACTIONABLE CONTENT

Whether your business blog posts are short and frequent, or longer and less frequent they must deliver content, information, and education that people in your target market can act on. There’s enough mindless blathering that goes on the Internet already. People have enough clutter in their lives. They won’t tolerate any more from you and your business blog.

If you’re writing shorter posts, they’re likely to be more reference” or “journal” based.

For reference posts: be sure to provide links to your reference sources. If those sources are other blogs, be sure to use the trackback feature that most blogs have. If your reference source is another regular web site, be sure to provide a direct link to exactly where the content resides.

And similarly, for content that may have been gathered off-line, provide enough information so your readers can easily locate those reference sources.

For journal type posts: be sure to summarize and make the point of your posts crystal clear. For example, if you’re a real estate broker who deals with a lot of investors, you may want to use a Journal type approach to your blog. You can do that by posting the most important occurrence of the day in your brokerage or your geographic market. Then translate what that means to the investors that follow your blog.

If you’re writing longer posts, you’re more likely to be able to make those articles truly educational. Now while I can go into a full training on how to write an actionable article in one article, here are three fast keys that you must have when writing your articles for your blog:

1. A focused, benefit laden title
2. An intriguing introduction (and/or a summary paragraph for very long articles.)
3. Introduce your key points, then expand on each one in full detail.
4. Tell or show your reader specifically how to apply what you’ve just shown them in their business or life.
5. Make a strong close with the statement or question that makes the reader “think.”

The most important thing in creating actionable content is to make it easy for your reader to apply what they’ve learned. Breaking things down into bullet points, numbered lists, and posing introspective questions all make for digestible content that your readers can easily put into action.

“L” stands for LISTEN-TO and LINK-WITH

LISTEN-TO: You must be driven with an undying passion to deliver information, communication, or guidance that your target market wants. In order to find out what your choice clientele wants from your blog, all you need to do, is ask, watch, and listen carefully to people in your corner of the marketplace.

You can start with your own clients, expand to competitive research finding out what other companies in your niche are missing, and then take your research up to a geographic or industry level. Look for common themes in the desire for solutions or unmet needs in your industry.

LINK-WITH: As I just mentioned — your outcome must be closely related to and linked with what your target market wants. But beyond that, you’re not only looking to deliver that information, communication, or guidance. You must also increase rapport and further open the communication channel with your readers. This is what will allow you to build deeper relationships and create raving fans.

No matter how fancy your website is, or how grammatically correct your business blog is – if you fail to listen-to and link-with your visitors and subscribers, the human connection is lost. And in the end, that is the main point of your business blog.

There you have it. Five simple keys that will help you get your business blog rolling on the right track, for long-lasting success.

If you’re new to business blogging, or have only been using a third party hosted blog up until this point and you want to take full advantage of business blogging as quickly as possible — you can do that with a powerful new interactive telecourse and video series called “ How to Master Business Blogging.” This is where you’ll get accelerated knowledge that will give you a mega jump over your competitors, who will be trying to figure it all out on their own.

In just 39-days you’ll go from “blogging newbie” to “business blogging professional”.

In this five-week telecourse and video series we’ll take you by the hand, and guide you step-by-step through a simple 5-Step System that will help you unravel the world of blogging and put you on the fast track to online communication success.

• By the end of week one you’ll have not only one, but two business blogs up and running. (And you’ll learn exactly why this second blog is critical for rapid search engine ranking.)
• By the end of week two, you’ll know the secrets of generating content that both human visitors and search engine spiders will slurp up like a thirsty dog on a hot summer day.
• Week three and four will show you exactly how to start channeling an ever-increasing stream of highly targeted prospects to your site where you’ll educate and build rapport while positioning yourself as a trusted adviser.
• At the end of week five you’ll be fully equipped to begin converting content to cash as you transform your business blog into a major marketing arm of your business.

You can learn more about this limited opportunity at http://www.HowToBusinessBlog.com.

Enjoy! And happy business blogging!

John-Paul Micek
Click-and-Mortar Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club
http:/www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com

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