How to Write Blog Posts That Will Grow Your Readership, and Your Business

When a business starts blogging, there is usually a huge temptation to use this newly-minted blog as a tool to directly promotion the business and its products and services.  Unfortunately, this is the quickest way to guarantee that your blog will be totally useless and irrelevant to visitors.  So what should your blog focus on?  Providing value to your readers, of course!

Let's use a hypothetical example.  Let's say that Bob's Lawncare wants to start blogging.  Bob offers lawncare services, but has also developed his own line of lawncare products that he sells locally, but would also like to sell over the internet.  Bob knows that Spring and Summer is right around the corner, which is when people turn their thoughts to caring for their yards.

Bob's first thought is that he needs to promote his products and services.  That if he can show that his weed-killer works the best, or that his line of pesticides does a better job of ridding your yard of insects than the competition, that he will be set. 

But let's switch gears for a minute and look at Bob's blogging plan through the eyes of his readers.  How are Bob's readers likely to reach his new blog?

There are three main ways that people would arrive at Bob's Lawncare blog:

1 - By doing a Google search for a term/phrase that Bob blogs about

2 - By clicking on a link to Bob's Lawncare blog from another blog

3 - By subscribing to Bob's feed, or bookmarking his blog.


Now since Bob wants to use his blog as a tool to directly promote his lawncare business, let's say that a typical post from Bob might be 'How Bob's Weedkiller Can Give You the Perfect Lawn!"  Bob would then explain why his particular weedkiller works better than the brand names that you are familiar with. 

But is this the type of content that would build Bob's blog?  Would this type of self-promotion draw visitors from Google searches?  Probably not, since most people won't be searching for 'Bob's Weedkiller'.  Would this type of content be what other blogs would want to link to?  Probably not, since it's a promotional piece that doesn't really offer any value.  Finally, would this type of content be likely to grow Bob's subscriber base?  Probably not, since it's basically an advertisement for Bob's products and services.  Bob's friends and family might be ok with that, but everyone else could probably care less.

Now let's look at what might happen if Bob switched the focus of his content.  Instead of a post about 'How Bob's Weedkiller Can Give You the Perfect Lawn!', what if Bob blogged about '10 Steps to a Weed-Free Lawn By May 1st". 

Notice that the tone of Bob's posts has completely shifted.  Bob has gone from directly promoting himself, to now he is telling his blog's visitors how to solve a problem.  How many people want to learn more about Bob's Weedkiller?  Probably not too many.  But how many people want to learn more about having a weed-free lawn?  A whole lotta people!

By shifting to focusing on how he can solve problems and provide value to others, Bob has suddenly greatly increased his blog's relevance with readers.  Now people that search for terms like 'getting a weed-free lawn', or 'how to remove weeds from your lawn', might end up at Bob's blog post about '10 Steps to a Weed-Free Lawn By May 1st' (And search traffic suddenly helps Bob sell his lawncare products over the internet).  Other bloggers might see the value in this post, and link to it on their own blogs.  And finally, visitors that are interested in caring for their lawn will probably see the value in this post, and are much more likely to subscriber to Bob's Lawncare blog.

The key mistake that many businesses make when they blog is that they attempt to put themselves first.  They want to use their blog as a tool for self-promotion, which provides almost no incentive for visitors to become readers.  When a blog instead focuses on providing value for its readers, then it begins to grow.  People that will come to Bob's blog don't care about hearing about Bob's products, they care about hearing how they can solve a lawncare problem they are having, or how they can improve their current lawncare efforts.

View your business blog as a tool to provide value DIRECTLY to your readers, and you will INDIRECTLY see your business grow as a result.