Creating The Right Blog for Your Business

About a week ago I completed the web project and promo video above: N*Powered Women an Empowerment Blog for Women by Life Coach Nicolette James. As I worked on the design I started thinking about entrepreneurs who are interested in using their blogs as marketing tools. Do you have the right blog for your business? Do you even have a blog?

When developing a business blog keep the following points in mind:

If you want to build a list of subscribers, don’t make the mistake of NOT having a subscriber form or putting your form at the bottom of your website. Make sure your sign up form is at the top of the page and includes an incentive for people to sign up. For this project my client followed my recommendation and signed up to madmimi, for her email marketing needs.

New Media is Dynamic. Nicolette does a weekly audio series, what do you do? Audio, Video, Social Media Links and Plugins are essential if you want to keep readers engaged and coming back for more. At the same time, its important not to get too PLUGIN Happy. I limit myself to less than 10 (ideally 5) must have plugins. Alot of that stuff looks cool but it can slow down your blog or make it look too busy. My Rule of thumb is to only use the plugins I need.

Stick to your TRUE Objective. As I explain in this audio series, entrepreneurs your business blog should fulfill 3 purposes – build your list, attract new customers, keep your current customers happy. If you don’t know what to blog about OR had to had consistent value on your blog that convinces people to buy what you have, make sure you listen to that audio series, which you an also download here.

Creating the right blog for your business REALLY starts with having a clear objective. Its not about blogging because everybody says you need to blog. When you blog for trends sake, your blog will suck (point blank). When you blog because you have great information to share, you want to let readers into how your run your business and life, OR you just want to create a space that gives other people a voice – you have to have a SOLID reason for your blog and you have to blog like you mean it!

I just wanted to share those few tips with you today. I encourage you to visit Nicolette’s website, sign up if her focus topic is of interest to you and of course review the different features we added to create a fresh, dynamic space for her readers.

A few words from Nicollete on the finished website:

LaShanda Henry is awesome! I love the web design she created for me. It is very easy to work with LaShanda. She listens to your wants and then incorporates them in a way that will exceed your own expectations. LaShanda works very quickly once she establishes what you want. Her turn around time is amazing.

It is easy to communicate with her because she truly is working to ensure that you are pleased with the final product. I have worked with her on more than one project and each time was a great experience. I was very happy, ecstatic in fact, with her web design. I recommend her highly to anyone looking for a professional who is easy to work with. She definitely has a client for life in me!

Of course, if you need a blog, send me an email and I can give you a price quote. In addition to customizing the wordpress blog, I setup the video, design promotional banners, as well as create custom Facebook welcome pages.

Related: Landing Page Vs Squeeze Page: Creating a one page website to promote your product or service.