If you write business blog articles regularly, one of the biggest challenges you’ll face is trying to come up with innovative, engaging, and original ideas. So how do you keep your content fresh and interesting week after week?

To keep both yourself and your reader engaged, you want to mix up the ways in which you interact. When you’re writing articles for your company’s blog, rotate between the three main types of content:  comment or opinion; list posts, such as ‘Top five ways to boost your business’; and news posts which react to current events.

If you focus more on articles for other websites (i.e. if you’re following a guest blogging strategy), then try to write for a variety of online publications. Keeping your style shifting and evolving will keep you engaged by making your brain work harder and appeal to your readers as they are always given something different and new.

But where does the content come from? Everyone has their own way of sourcing ideas, whether it’s through osmosis or research. Most writers keep a notepad in constant attendance, jotting down ideas as and when they come, whether it’s from a conversation held, a book read or a radio show listened to. The book can be a home for anything and everything; if it fires your imagination, write it down.

Don’t be afraid to mix these ideas up with your own thoughts and opinions either – the most important thing, whether writing articles or blogs, is to provide something people haven’t read before; so don’t just repeat ideas – improve on them.

Matt Chatterley of Mattched IT is our guest author for the first of a series of features about how businesses are using blogs as part of their marketing activities.

Once in a while, I wonder if the premise under which we run the Mattched IT Blog is good or not - then I stop procrastinating and get back to the business at hand - typically writing up another blog post.

The reason I tell you this is because our blog is distinctly different from most corporate blogs - partly because we are a small business - and partly because we want it to be different. The goal of our blog (and indeed, this meshes with our whole approach to Social Media) is to engage an audience that is wider than our immediate client base and to promote an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable communicating with us.

Of course, behind the scenes, it’s part of our marketing strategy and ultimately we have the aim of winning more business through Social Media. Instead of constant streams of “Hey, look at our Product X!” and so forth, we try to focus most of our blog posts on issues which come up in the day to day running of our business, topics which we as directors are interested in and items which we feel would be of interest to our audience. The intended results from this are a greater depth of interaction and promoting ourselves amongst said audience as a good source of information.

We recently won a good piece of business with our combined social media strategy.  A prospect got in touch through our website and mentioned they’d been referred to us on Twitter. Not recognising the name of the referrer, we were slightly confused, until upon further investigation we realised what had happened.

One of the people whom we interact quite often via Social Media had recommended us to someone they deal with regularly - because they thought we might be able to assist with an ongoing problem. Although said referree had not yet had time to get in touch, they had been asked if they could help with an upcoming project by one of their own clients. Because they were not able to - and presumably because we were fresh in their mind - they referred the client to us.

I think this is a great example of how maintaining a profile in the world of Social Media is valuable to a business (particularly if service or consultancy based) - and in my opinion, why you should seek deeper engagement than simply telling people what you’re selling. We regularly post links to our blog on Twitter, which has helped establish us as an authority source, and that’s what triggered the chain of events that led to us winning our new client.

Given that we have recently set up a group on Linkedin called ‘Content Marketing for SMEs’ it seemed an appropriate moment to explore some content marketing strategies.

Let’s start by examining what sort of content businesses can use as part of a content marketing strategy. Talks for networking events, presentations, pitches, speeches and training materials are all types of content that most businesses produce from time to time. They can be incorporated into an online content marketing strategy by:

•    Turning the material into articles for your corporate blog and announcing it on social networks such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook.

•    Contributing guest pieces to other corporate blogs (with a back-link to your website, of course).

•    Spinning any news-worthy angle into a press release and sending it to journalists in your industry.

•    Creating a white paper that is available for download through your website … in exchange for the recipients’ email addresses.

•    Writing articles for publication and syndication.

•    Sending a monthly e-newsletter to your database of customers and prospects containing highlights from your corporate blog and any attention-grabbing company news.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article writing or web content. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

The main aim of a business blog is to bring customers to your website and to associate your brand with their requirements. Therefore, the more regular readers you have, the more word-of-mouth you are likely to attract and the more successful your blog will be. So how can you turn casual readers into a fan club?

One of the most crucial points of your business blog for grabbing readers is the ‘call to action’, usually a single word that inspires a reader to join your blog. The most popular term in Internet parlance is ‘subscribe’, which can cause confusion among some readers. Off-line, subscriptions usually incur a financial charge, whereas you want your readers to sign up for free. You may like to consider ‘join’ or ‘follow’ as less loaded alternatives. This will apply both within your blog and any ‘sign-up’ buttons.

As variety is the spice of life, it’s best to offer several ways to follow your business blog. RSS is a relatively new technology, popular among web-savvy clients, but not currently accepted into popular use. For clients who aren’t up to speed – you may like to offer an email subscription feed, which follows a more traditional format.

Like most aspects of creating a business blog, your two key aims are to be clear and inclusive. If you apply this to your language, your overall tone and your formatting you’ll quickly see passers-by turn into pals.

Remember Write My Site offers a full blog management service if your business wants to add blogging into the marketing mix. Tariffs start from just £150 per month.

What’s the first thing you think about when writing a blog for business? The answer should be your audience. No matter who your target demographic is, they are always your number one priority in creating content. A business blog is different from a personal blog, in that it should aim to generate a following, not simply to share the latest goings-on within the company with anyone who’s interested (sadly, few people outside of the business will care whether you’ve changed stationery suppliers).

Once you’ve identified your audience, your first question should be; How can I capture their interest? Statistics, jokes, anecdotes and rhetorical questions all serve to create an engaging introduction. You just need to decide which is most likely to appeal to your audience. A scientific-minded group may be grabbed by a startling statistic; younger audiences by an anecdotal joke.

A typical reader will have time constraints and probably the same relatively short attention-span that applies to most web-users. Therefore, to accommodate them you need to write clearly and concisely. While good writing is essential, a business blog is not the place for linguistic hyperbole or fancy ideas. Overdressing your content in metaphors, similes and long-winded sentences creates a diversion, ultimately distracting the reader and weakening your message.

Business blogs should aim to be interactive, and appeal to readers’ imaginations. To reinforce this connection you next want to address your tone. An overtly formal tone can over-complicate sentences and seem patronising. Keep a relatively conversational tone, free of slang, buzz words or jargon. The latter is especially important if your audience is non-specialist, as technical terms can be extremely alienating.

Putting yourself in the reader’s place will greatly enhance your business blog writing and increase interest in your website. Just bear in mind at all times – there is no ‘I’ in blog.

What do you want your website content to do for your business? You probably want to attract the attention of search engines, to raise your online profile and to gain potential clients’ confidence in your business. One way you can help achieve all of these goals is to include a ‘News’ section on your website.

The most efficient news sections are designed to be quickly updatable and usually keep news items to 250 or so words, an ideal length for attracting Internet readers. This can always link to a longer article on your company blog if you feel there is more to say. However, if you do create longer versions, ensure they have a purpose. As with all web content, news items and associated articles should be kept clear and concise. Use exactly as many words as you need - not a single letter more. A regular schedule of fresh content means your site will be crawled more often by the search engines.

A frequently updated website also sends a strong signal to potential customers that you are an active and dynamic company. It gives them an insight into your aims, achievements and work in the current market that product descriptions and static pages can’t achieve. To this end, consider a variety of news posts on a variety of topics. Types of posts may include articles on product and company news (upgrades, promotions, recent press coverage); as well as wider industry news.

Online news sections can work really well in tandem with business blogs: the former can demonstrate your organisation’s leadership in its industry, whereas the latter offers a more informal platform for potential customers to interact.

As providers of blogging services it goes without saying that we’re super-keen on the idea of every business including a blog as part of their online strategy. Even if you’re not going to ask Write My Site to write it for you, here are the top five reasons why a blog is a great idea for your business:

1)    You can establish yourself as an authority in your industry

Christophe Langlois is a good example of this. His blog, Visible-Banking.com, is the leading independent blog focused on social media in banking and financial services. As a result, Christophe is frequently invited to speak at industry conferences and other high profile events. At Econsultancy’s Future of Digital Marketing conference last week, Christophe said none of this would have happened without his blog.

2)    Business blogging is a great way to gain a following of customers (and future customers)

If your content is interesting, people will come back to read more of it. Simple.

3)    The search engines – especially Google – love sites with regularly updated content.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) basically boils down to three things: one is having your site built in an SEO friendly way (talk to your web developer); the second is getting other sites to link to your site; and the third is fresh, unique content. A blog is the perfect way to achieve two out of these three aims: a good blog will not only provide the search engines with the regular content they’re looking for, it will also generate inbound links when other websites refer to your articles.

4)    Business blogs provide regular opportunities to use your keywords

Look at how many times you can see the words “business blog” in this article. It’s one of our keywords and as soon as this business blog post (see?) goes live, the post and its keywords will be indexed by Google.

5)    Blogs give you a great excuse to direct people towards your website

Write an interesting article for your business blog and then link to it from Twitter, Ecademy and online forums. It’s the perfect way to bring your website to the attention of potential customers.