How do you decide what to write in a Blog?

Even the best authors and journalists suffer from writer’s block – and they’re the professionals! So it’s hardly surprising that it’s not the easiest thing to sit down and just start writing blog copy that you’re confident will be worthy of the time and effort it will take.

But a little planning really can pay dividends… and here are my quick tips on how to approach it:

First things first: let’s map out some topics

What is it that your business does and why do your customers care about what you do?

If you’re a florist you don’t just pick up random flowers and wrap them in paper, you think hard about what flowers go well together – textures, colours and smells. You’ll think about the occasion the flowers might be for and what the flowers symbolise. You’ll know how long the flowers last (and how to help them last) and what times of year you may expect certain flowers over others.

Now, I can see about four or five blog topics there just from quickly mapping out the different ways a florist approaches their work.

It’s pretty much the same for every business. No-one just sells a product or a service, each will have many different components.

Break down your business offer into as many parts as possible and decide whether any stand out as a topic that you could expand on. Also have a think about what your customers might be searching for online for them to come across your website. If you’ve already put a list of keywords together for your website, do any of these lend themselves to a blog topic?

Bringing other people on board

And a blog doesn’t just have to be about you. Going back to the florist, what about the farmers and gardeners who grow the flowers? What tips might they be able to share? How about mapping out the journey from seed to sell? Here’s a great opportunity for what’s called a ‘guest blog’, a chance to offer value to customers by giving them access to partners and suppliers who could be of interest to them.

Create a calendar

You should now have some topics and maybe even a partner or two who could contribute a blog that would be of value to your customers.

Now’s the time to put some structure in place. A blog should at least be monthly. Fortnightly or weekly is even better, but a monthly blog is still fine. Look at the topics you’ve mapped out – do any naturally fall into a sequence? Whether they do or don’t, start to create a timeline of a topic per month (or whichever frequency you prefer) and get writing.

Some people prefer to spend a half day writing three or four blog posts so that they have peace of mind for the coming weeks or months. Others prefer to write on-the-fly when they’re in the mood or when something specific has happened that week that perfectly matches an upcoming blog topic. Whichever works for you, I wish you all the best with it!

And that’s it for now – happy planning and creating!!

Rebecca x