IdeaStar has been providing corporate blogs and know-how for a while now. Based on the experiences of our clients, a successful corporate blog requires these 10 elements.
- Defined purpose – It is important to outline your goals for the blog and who your audience is. For instance, our client Insuranti uses its blog to attract insurance sales agents. Your goal might be to increase sales or brand awareness, in which case articles would be written for customers.
- Good design – A blog should not only look good and reflect your corporate brand, but should be easy to navigate. Like any Web site, if a visitor can’t find what he wants quickly or read the type – he’s out of there and he won’t be back!
- Dedicated staff - The quality and consistency of content is important. The blog needs a list of regular contributors, or at least one dedicated writer, to post on a regular basis.
- Posting schedule – It’s great if you can post on a daily basis. However if you do not have sufficient, quality content, post at least once or twice per week. Visitors need a reason to come back for more.
- Comments Policy – How will comments be answered and by whom? What will you do with negative comments? It’s best to determine this before you receive comments.
- “About Us” section – This gives visitors background about you, your company, your products and services. Don’t miss this great opportunity to put your best foot forward.
- An RSS link – RSS allows visitors who sign-up to be notified of new content on your blog.
- About the authors – Build credibility by providing a brief biography and picture of each writer. Depending on your blog, bios can be serious or light-hearted,
- Share it now capabilities – Blogs are all about “buzz.” Allow easy links for readers to share an article.
- Somebody in charge – Every blog needs a task master to make sure articles are edited and submitted, meet blog goals, and remain within legal bounds.
Those are 10 must haves. Let me know if you think of more.
Would you like to learn more? You may:
- Fill out our information request form.
- Review information found on our Web site.
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Tags: 10 must haves • about us section • comments policy • corporate blogs • dedicated staff • defined purpose • good design • posting schedule • RSS link • share it now capabilities
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February 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I think you’ve got the makings of a great blog, but missed on the entire blogging strategy. What are you looking to do with your blog? Is it for inbound leads? In that case, you need to identify keywords and phrases that searchers will be using to connect with you and you need to blog about them.
In addition, you need great calls-to-action so that the perspective client can actually connect with you – perhaps a contact form or registration link. How are you going to measure that success? Hopefully you’ll integrate analytics and set up goals for your CTAs so that you can measure where and how customers are getting to your business blog.
Monitoring your traffic and results will allow you to see what content, keywords and CTAs are successfully driving business results! Then your team can react accordingly to maximize the blog’s benefits.
February 11th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Thank you. You raise some good points.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I dont think ‘dedication’ is enough for a team of company bloggers or even just one blogger. I think u need someone who is passionate and is able to be transparent and honest with himself and how his company is represented through the blog(it will show in his writing anyway).
I think Doug’s point on important keywords and phrases is what we mean by SEO marketing (search engine optimisation) – for that u need a good IT/technical team for support.