Writing Prompts For Your Business Blog

In a recent post, I wrote about the many reasons why a business should blog.  You can read it here if you missed it Why Should a Business Blog?

What I would like to talk about in this post is some suggestions and ideas for the type of blog posts that you may want to consider writing and sharing with your audience.

Perhaps you are ready to blog but are still short on ideas and inspiration.  If that is the case, I have listed some simple writing prompts below to help get you started.

What Have You Worked On In The Last Week?

This is always a great one for getting the creative juices flowing.

Have a think about the things you have been working on in the last week.  Have you worked with a new client?  Perhaps you have been involved in a process that is slightly different to your usual work?  Have you completed a new project? Is there something here that would be of interest to prospective new clients?  Share it, explain the process, tell your readers why it was successful.

Refer to your new client, if it was a business to business transaction, perhaps there is an opportunity for collaboration.  There is a good chance that it may be of mutual benefit to your combined audience.  There are several prompts here that are certainly blog worthy.

Niches That Need To Be Explained

Does your particular business have a niche that needs to be explained to your audience.  Is this something that could be set out over a series of blogs?  If clients understand what you do, it helps them to see why your services may be of benefit to them.  If they aren’t well informed they may not see how you could help them.  Make it easier for people to do business with you.

The Devil Is In The Detail

Don’t fight shy of detail.  You may be the expert at your business but your prospective client isn’t. Sometimes it can be simple blocks and misunderstandings that can prevent us from investing in a service.  Spell it out.

Anticipate Customer Questions

Are you asked the same question regularly about your product or service?  If so, this is certainly blog worthy.  Simple explanations and answers to popular questions make great blog material.  You can refer potential customers to your posts over and over again.

It’s Not Just About The Words

If you have a creative business, let photographs do the work for you.  We are always drawn to an image – look at how popular Instagram and Pinterest are.  Some of your fabulous images followed by a few words about the process or journey can provide a very interesting blog post for your readers.  Perhaps you have a gardening business – let the service work for itself through images.

New Products & Services

Are you about to launch a new product?  How exciting!  Have you told your customers?  If not, why not?  This is fabulous news and you need to be sharing it.  Perhaps you are looking for some feedback before launch?  Again, ask others for their thoughts.  This is also a great way to get a dialogue going through your blog comments section.

Don’t Forget We Want To Get To Know You

We are more likely to place our business with someone that we know, like and trust.  Allow us an insight into the face behind the business.  Perhaps you have a team?  Introduce them if so.  This could be a blog post of its own.  It puts faces to names and provides a personal touch.  Don’t be afraid to intersperse posts with snippets about yourself either.

Be Current

At the time of writing this post, the weather is scorching.  If my business related to fans, coolers, outdoor furniture or such like, I would be missing a trick not to talk about my products on my blog.  Today the hashtag #toohottosleep is trending on Social Media.  Imagine if your product was the solution!

So there we have a few suggestions which will hopefully be sufficient to help you to start popping some ideas down for a blog post.

Still struggling?

In my next post, I plan to share an example of a business blog.

If there are any business owners that are finding blogging difficult to approach or feel that their business doesn’t lend itself to a blog post, feel free to drop me a line via my Contact Page.  I would be happy to include your business as an example.

Good luck and thank you for reading.

Nicky

 

Introducing My Guest Blogger

Something a little different for this week.

I have a special little guest blogger who has written for me, my daughter Lily.

Lily is 9 years old and has expressed an interest in having a blog.

Like many children her age, she is very interested in young bloggers and vloggers – of which there are many.

Naturally she wants to have a go herself.

I suggested that she be my guest blogger and then we could go from there.

She knew what she wanted to write about and I left her to it.

She has written about her new rabbit, Willow.

As you may know, I am scared of animals so these have been exciting times in our little household.

I thought it would be a good idea for her to see how the whole thing comes together and she sat with me to ‘publish’ the post, so to speak.

As a parent, internet safety is key here but I think it is also important not to stifle a willingness to learn.

We have talked about staying safe online and she understands why this is important and how to stay safe.

Like all children, Lily is very adept at working her way around computer systems and negotiating technology with ease.

As a parent, it can be very difficult to get the right balance here.

I’m not going to prevent her from writing and being creative but what I can do is make sure it is done in a controlled environment.

She has written a fabulous piece below.

Nicky x

My Rabbit, Willow is a fun and friendly animal!  I play with her every day and enjoy every minute of it!  We’ve had her for nearly 3 weeks now, which is not a long time but I have already bonded with her lots and she has bonded with me as well.  She has her own cardboard castle which I am currently building as Rabbits love to play and chew cardboard!  On Thursday she ran so fast she was pushed up into the air and landed on the floor, as you might know mum does not like animals and did not want to get Willow in the first place, but as soon as I called her “mum she has jumped out the cage” she ran to Willows safety picked her up and put her in her cage (which is a big achievement!) Now you might think why didn’t I do it, well the reason was I was so in shock. Being a single child with no pet is sometimes boring, but now I have willow she has made it never boring and I can now say I have a pet!

 

Me and Blogging!

It seems only right and proper that my first post should be about blogging!

God knows it’s taken me forever to get to this stage and I don’t mind admitting that I have really dilly dallied on the way.

As an action oriented kind of gal, I have never experienced this level of procrastination over something that I have such passion for. So much so that I’ve got on my own nerves.

So what has held me back – interesting question – it certainly isn’t writers block as I am bursting with ideas ready to go. Quite frankly it’s been how to do it. Which blogging vehicle to use for the novice? Of course the more advice you take and the more you read up, the more scenarios you are faced with and the harder it is to make a decision. Whether not doing the right thing at the outset could cause problems down the line etc. Anyway, I just can’t stand the suspense anymore.

I drool daily at the wonderful blogs that I am reading, how fabulous they look and at what a talented, witty, funny lot you all are. I love the looks of the blogs and all the fabulous things that are done with linkies and the opportunities for sharing and I long to get involved. I’m like the kid looking through the sweet shop window.
I’ve got so caught up in the design and the how and I guess that has held me back.

So I have taken the piece of advice that resonated with me the most and that is – “just write”.

So here it is warts and all, ‘my foot in’ to the unknown, so to speak. I shall probably look back at this and giggle but hey it’s a work in progress, a blank canvas on which to get cracking. I shall enjoy learning from the mistakes I make along the way and laughing at them.

Thank you for reading.
Stick with it!