10 Creative Blog Content Ideas for Your Small Business Blog
Sarah
It wasn’t long ago that businesses began to realize they needed to create websites if they wanted to remain competitive in a rapidly changing consumer market.
And now that you’ve established an online presence and a virtual portal to interact with customers, the next step is to start an on-site blog as a means of adding value, increasing traffic, and providing yourself with a platform from which to practice ongoing SEO efforts.
The real problem, however, is that you have an onus to create new blog content ideas on a regular basis. And if you want to build a readership and eventually an online community of followers that interact with your brand and each other, the blog content ideas must be topical, timely, informative, and entertaining.
This is a tall order for anyone concerned with the daily operations of their professional enterprise, but especially small business owners that already find themselves wearing multiple hats.
But there are ways to come up with the creative blog content ideas that will keep your readers riveted and help to raise your page rank with search engines.
10 Creative Blog Content Ideas
Conduct Interviews with Experts
If you’re having a hard time coming up with new blog content ideas for your business blog, why not use some star power to boost your readership and take the pressure of topic choice off yourself?
Industry experts will certainly answer your questions, and if they are known for specific angles, platforms, or recent media releases, you’ll have no problem figuring out what topics to cover. But they may also be prevailed upon to choose the topic of discussion for you, especially if they happen to be pursuing a particular agenda when you host the interview.
You’ll just have to make sure that whatever opinions they espouse or information they offer is in keeping with your goals and ideals, not to mention the leanings of your readership and your customers.
Answer Industry Specific Questions
Anyone interested in your blog is either aware of your industry already or they’re looking to learn more, and you have the opportunity to approach your readers as an expert yourself. If you’re getting a lot of questions concerning certain topics, you should definitely use them as blog content ideas.
Clearly people want to know, so don’t hesitate to give them what they want. You can also answer your own questions concerning your industry, operating under the assumption that people in the know are likely to have similar queries.
Create a Series of How-To Tutorial Videos
Whether you’re selling a product or a service, you want to make sure that your customers don’t find themselves confused about how to proceed once they’ve got your products in hand or the terms of your service have expired.
Take for example the BlendTec blender and the related YouTube series “Will it Blend?” These humorous vignettes feature a man in a lab coat and goggles asking the titular question before throwing in everything from Apple devices to oysters (complete with shells) to action figures and Barbie dolls to see if the BlendTec is powerful enough to blend them.
While you may or may not elect to take a similarly humorous approach to your tutorial videos, they are a great way to create easily sharable content and break up the monotony of pages filled with blocks of text.
Talk About Big Industry News
Any time you’re stumped for blog content ideas, simply turn to the news of the day to find tidbits related to your industry. Whether you simply pass along relevant information to your readership or you put your own personal spin on the commentary, you can find interesting and timely information to fill your blog by following industry news feeds.
Profile Existing Employees and New Hires
One of the main goals of blogging is to connect with consumers on a personal level, and you can add a truly personal vibe to your small business blog by profiling members of your team.
Whether you create a weekly segment to introduce your employees to readers and highlight their accomplishments or you ask workers to find their own voice and lend their talents to your efforts by penning their own blog posts, you should gain the attention of readers and further endear them to your brand.
Host a Google Hangout Featuring Other Industry Professionals
Google hangouts can help your blog in a number of ways. For one thing, you’ll have the aid of a panel of industry professionals when it comes to disseminating information. Depending on the topic under discussion, you might even inspire some lively debate. However, you can also ask readers to send in questions for inclusion as a way to encourage interaction.
Create a Resource List
A resource list consists of several resources (or links to them) associated with a specific topic. Suppose you operate a retail clothing business and your readers are interested in learning more about the latest fashion trends for the upcoming season.
If you’ve already written some articles on this topic, you can link to them via your resource list, thus creating a new post without actually having to write a whole new post. But in order to add value you may also want to link to trusted outside sources like e-zines and even other blogs that you frequent.
Offer Freebies or Discounts
Visitors that already buy your products will be pleased to get deals, discounts, and freebies by following your blog. And such blog content ideas are sure to attract consumers that may not have been aware of your presence previously or that were shopping with your competitors.
Cover New Product Launches or Company Announcements
News doesn’t have to concern your industry as a whole: it could pertain solely to your particular niche or brand. If, for example, you’ve decided to launch a new product lineup or your company is going public, you might want to share the news with your loyal readership first.
Feature a Customer Case Study
Satisfied customers are the best form of advertising, and you’ll find that nearly everyone has a story to tell. So in the interest of connecting with your audience and creating compelling content, you should definitely consider adding features that focus on specific customers and their experience with your company.
In advertising this might be called a testimonial, but you could also view it as a sort of human interest piece.