Blogs are becoming increasingly popular among small business owners. They are a great way to connect with your audience on a more personal level. You can share anything from personal life stories to tips and tricks of the business and anything and everything in between. Blogs are an awesome way to build up your brand’s identity through content and brand marketing.
Unfortunately, creating the blog and posting content is the easy part. The struggle is that as female entrepreneurs, garnering an audience and thus, a revenue stream for our blogs can be tough to nail down. Let’s face it, sometimes it’s hard to feel like your voice matters in a sea of professional superwomen with insanely successful careers and suspiciously perfect hair all the time. In this post, we’ll share with you some tried and tested ways to boost your small business’ blog audience and revenue.
Know your audience:
In order to best boost your audience, you need to know the kind of people that are visiting your blog. If your blog’s audience is mostly other female business owners and entrepreneurs, then you want to share your wisdom and advice on topics that interest them. There’s no need to write a blog on tips to mow the lawn if the majority of your audience is coming to you for mentorship in women’s entrepreneurship. The more you know your audience and write content that is appealing to them, the more they will share it with their audience and soon their audience will also become your audience. The more people that visit your blog, the more likely it is you will convert readers to subscribers and clients or get sponsored ads on your page.
Find your unique voice:
In order to maximize your blog’s audience and utility, you’ll need to share unique content. You don’t want to share the same content that every other blogger out there is. Give your audience a reason to come to your blog. Whether it’s career advice, tips on being a female entrepreneur and dating, tips for success in brand marketing or sharing your great grandmother’s banana bread recipe— be unique and find your own voice.
Share your story:
Forging true connections over the Internet can often be a challenge. Everybody only wants to show their highlight reel: their professionally staged photo shoot, their perfect apple pie that they had to make three times so the crust came out in a pleasing way for Instagram, their manicured nails and their groomed and bathed children. We say, BORING. The Internet is full of that and the truth is, it’s phony. For you to really grab your audience’s attention and hearts, share your truth.
Blog about the ugly. Write a post about a deal that fell through, a customer that you lost or a project that didn’t pan out. Be truthful with your audience about what skills of yours just aren’t up to par. You will be amazed at the response. The uplifting comments will come flooding in and you’ll truly feel a sense of community among your audience as everybody starts sharing in the comment section or through DMs the things that haven’t panned out in their business plans as well.
Seeing this kind of content on a blog post is a refreshing change and will absolutely forge a connection between you and your audience. By sharing these types of struggles, you will feel more human to your audience and they will celebrate your successes with you even louder. Be confident in your story. Own it and share it.
Post consistently:
You want your blog to be a true resource for other female entrepreneurs and business owners. In order to do that, you need to be putting out content for them on a consistent basis. The last thing you want is to leave your audience hanging. Now, we’re not saying you need to be posting essays every day, but be consistent in your posting in a way that will allow your audience to build a relationship with you and look forward to new content from you. A posting schedule is something we highly recommend. This allows your audience to know when they can expect certain content from you. For example, you could do a new blog post every Tuesday, a Q & A every Friday and a fun photo every Sunday. A consistent schedule will allow you to establish a following quicker.
Try different types of content:
You want your content to have a common theme in order to best promote your business. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t try different ways to post that content. For example, instead of posting a blog post about 15 ways to attract new customers, why not do it as a video blog? If you’re doing an interview with another female business owner, instead of typing it up, throw on the webcam and post the video as well. You could also do a fun throwback photo of what you looked like when you first started your business compared to now. Encourage your audience to also share their photos with you or post on social media with a shared hashtag. This will really get your momentum moving and get traffic to your blog.
Blogging is an inexpensive and simple way to reach and connect with your audience. The Internet is extremely oversaturated though, that’s why it’s so important that you find and share your unique voice with your followers in order to really connect with your audience. An authentic connection is what’s going to keep visitors coming back and telling their friends about your little space on the Internet! The larger your audience, the more likely you are to see readers become purchasers of your goods and services, and the more likely advertisers are to work with you to your mutual benefit. Get out there, embrace your voice, share your flaws, and lead by example. The rest will come.
