Simplify Your Business Blog

The first week of August is National Simplify Your Life week. It’s a great time to reflect on the clutter in all areas of your life, but today we’ll be focusing on simplifying your business blog.

As bloggers and businesspeople, we’re often faced with the problem of too many ideas. At first, that may not seem like such a bad thing—better than too few, right?—but an overabundance of ideas can lead to an unfocused blog and meandering posts. Those, in turn, lead to a muddled brand. Here’s how to stay focused and stay on message with your blog!

Don’t Multitask: Studies have shown that multitasking is bad; the human brain simply isn’t wired for it. Blogging shouldn’t be an afterthought or something you do while you balance the books (or squeeze in lunch at your desk). Set aside a regular chunk of time to write—preferably at the same time every day or week. A 500-word blog post shouldn’t take more than two hours to write and research (including proofreading time). If you’re easily distracted, however, or try to do too many things at once, that can easily balloon into a task that takes all morning.

“Practice concentration by turning off all distractions and committing your attention to a single task,” advises Nadia Goodman for Entrepreneur . “Start small, maybe five minutes per day, and work up to larger chunks of time. If you find your mind wandering, just return to the task at hand.”

Pick a Theme, Any Theme: Many business blogs, especially those run by small business owners and entrepreneurs, tend to be an “everything but the kitchen sink” collection of the author’s thoughts and feelings of the moment. While that’s fine for a personal blog (which is basically a glorified journal), it’s a bad habit for a corporate blog.

That’s because your blog is a business tool meant to bolster your online presence, build customer confidence, and demonstrate your company’s excellence. If you haven’t done so already, plan an overall theme for your blog and limit yourself to topics that relate to it.

Go Back to School: The simple five-paragraph essay, so beloved of middle school English teachers, is a great model for a blog post. Begin with a thesis or topic for your post; for example, the thesis for this post is “ways to simplify your blog.” This will often become the title of the post. Next, jot down three to five ideas that support your topic. Those will be your sub-headings, which will often be bolded to break up big chunks of text.

Now it’s time to fill in the blanks with supporting statements, quotes from other bloggers or magazines, stories, pictures, lists, etc. Finally, bring it back to the beginning with a conclusion that reiterates your topic. This reinforces the idea in the reader’s mind. Unlike school essays, blog posts usually include a “call to action” at the end, encouraging the reader to participate in the conversation or make a purchase.

You wouldn’t create an ad campaign without a clear idea of what you were selling, and you certainly wouldn’t start a business with only the vaguest sense of what that business actually does. Approach your blog with the same focus and clarity of purpose. Not only will it be a more effective tool for your business, but you’ll also find that posts are a lot easier to write when you pick an idea and stick with it.

What’s your blogging bad habit? Share it in the comments!

Simplify Your Business Blog