Despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise, blogging for your business isn’t exactly sexy and exciting. In fact, if we’re being honest, a lot of it is pretty boring. Resizing images? Yawn. Proofreading? The worst. Formatting posts in WordPress? Kill me now.
Luckily, I’m a massive nerd who happens to quite like the boring stuff. Why? Because it can be the difference between content that flies and content that sinks without a trace.
If you want your marketing efforts to give you results, skipping the boring parts makes zero sense. Details matter! Becoming more visible, positioning yourself as an industry expert, and attracting more of your ideal clients should help ease the pain!
5 Boring Things Every Small Business Blog Needs
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1. A Clear Purpose
As well as understanding why you’re blogging for your business, who your blog is for, and the topics you’ll cover, it’s important to establish the purpose behind each individual post you publish. Ask yourself, what am I hoping to achieve through this piece of content? What’s my main motivation for writing and sharing it?
Are you demonstrating expertise to establish industry authority? Do you want to educate your audience on a particular subject? Perhaps you want to improve your website’s SEO or focus on building trust? Maybe you’re keen to grow your mailing list, promote a particular product/service, or earn money through affiliate links?
Long-form content can do all these things, but it can’t necessarily do them all at once in a single post, at least not to a high standard and without feeling spammy!
Most small business blogs need a good mix of these different content types. When you sit down to write, define the purpose of your blog post, be specific, and create with this intention in mind. The goal you’re trying to achieve is likely to inform things like content, style, structure, and the links you include.
For example, the main purpose of this post is to demonstrate my blogging expertise. With minimal effort, it will tick some of the other boxes described above, but writing with a single goal in mind keeps me focussed and improves the end result.
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2. A Content Plan
Posting consistently and publishing a good mixture of content requires planning, especially if you’re juggling marketing on top of everything else you’re expected to do as a business owner. Thinking ahead and creating an editorial calendar also helps your blog work harder for your business.
Imagine you’re in the process of creating a new digital product. Rather than coming up with content ideas on the fly, you can set aside time in advance to create a strategy that’s specifically designed to support your upcoming launch.
Content plans don’t have to be strict and formal. You can keep things loosey-goosey if that works for you! Once you’ve decided how often you’d like to post, I’d recommend planning your blog content for the next three to six months. Nothing is set in stone – you can always move things around if you need to.
If you’re not sure where to start or the task feels overwhelming, try creating categories or ‘content buckets’ for your blog – themed metaphorical buckets you fill up with ideas to write about. They should be representative of your brand and relevant in the context of your business.
Still feeling stuck? Book a Blog Content Planning Session with me and we can work it all out together!
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3. A House Style
I’m a stickler for consistency, and the best way to achieve this in your content is to establish a house style – a set of writing, grammar, and formatting rules designed to keep your work looking and sounding the same.
There are a few reasons I’d encourage you to do this. First, ‘deciding once’ saves time and energy in the long run. It gives you a template to follow every time you publish a blog post, reducing decision fatigue. You’ll know which words to capitalise, how to format a list, and where to put your images.
A blog that’s consistent and clear also tends to feel more professional and trustworthy. If you have multiple writers contributing to your blog, or you ever decide to outsource the writing completely, being able to communicate your house style will ensure every piece of content matches your brand.
I’d suggest starting with the basics. Will you use British or American spelling? How will you write dates, numbers, and titles? Which grammar rules will you follow for the use of the Oxford comma, em-dashes, and quotation marks?
To illustrate, core elements of my own house style include using Title Case for headings {as opposed to Sentence case}, writing numbers below 10 in full {one, two, three, four}, and opting for single quotation marks {rather than double}. It’s not grammatically correct, but I’ve also been using curly brackets throughout my writing since the 2010s!
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4. Sub-Headings
While we’re on the subject of formatting, don’t forget to use sub-headings {like H2 and H3 tags} in your writing. They break up long chunks of text, help readers scan for key points, and make your content easier to navigate.
They also provide structure for search engines and AI systems to understand the topic you’re writing about. Crucially, placing keywords in subheadings will help your content rank better for related searches. If readers can find the answers to their questions quickly, they tend to stay on your website longer, which also sends a good signal to search engines.
Finally, subheadings improve accessibly for screen readers, making your content more inclusive.
Not sure how to use headings correctly? Here’s a handy guide courtesy of Yoast.
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5. A Closing Call-To-Action
Never lead your readers towards a dead end. If they’ve made it all the way through a blog post, they’re engaged. They’re invested. They’re one step closer to becoming your biggest fan! These readers deserve a next step.
The purpose of your post {see above} might inform what this looks like. For example, if you’re focussing on building industry authority, you might want to signpost some social proof {reviews, testimonials, case studies}. If you’re promoting a specific service, you could link to a booking page for a consultation call.
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Work With Me
I’m Franky, an experienced copywriter and digital content creator who’s spent more than a decade helping ambitious business owners and solopreneurs communicate with their ideal clients. Need fresh copy or creative content for your small business? I can take that off your plate! Browse my portfolio here and get in touch to discuss your project.
Love Audrey xxx
