Blogging as a Marketing Tool for your Online Business (A) Plan Your Blog

(A) Plan Blog  →  (B) Maintain Blog  →  (C) Promote Blog  →   (D) Monetize Blog


An online business starts with an original and great idea. This idea should be related to a topic that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. This is to ensure that you have enough information to write about in future and that your interest in the topic will not diminish subsequently.

It is also important to find a topic that has global interest and to consider the longevity of the public interest. (However, there are some businesses which will thrive during certain periods of the years such as selling Christmas merchandise/installing Christmas lighings during Christmas period) It is recommended that you start to blog about industry related topics rather than focusing on a specific subset of an industry so that you will have more content to write about. 


Providing Solution

Once the topics have been decided, you now have to clearly define your target audience, identify who they are and the estimated size of this targeted group. It is most important to understand the needs of the viewers and to provide information that they are looking for. This information must be able to provide solutions to the problems that the audience is facing. In other words, the blog content must provide some form of value add to the audience in order to entice them to visit your blog.  

The next important thing to do is to select a suitable domain name for your blog. The selected name should be simple but yet striking, creative and easy to remember. The domain name should also summarise the content of your online business and you would have succeeded if your audience is able to infer the content of your blog just by looking at your domain name.

For bloggers who are seriously considering going full-time into your online business, you may wish to register your own domain name with domain service providers such as GoDaddy.com to give your blog a more professionally feel.     

There are several blogging platforms for you to chose from to create your blog. Blogger.com and WordPress.com are 2 popular choices that many bloggers are using.

Using hosted blog service like Blogger.com requires no prior programming knowledge or downloading of advance softwares. It is a low-cost option with pre-created templates that you can choose from. On the other hand, installed service application like WordPress.org allows you to access the codes to customise the functionality of your blog depending on your needs.

Video blogging on YouTube and Microblogging on Facebook & Twitter are also powerful mediums foyou to promote your products and services. 

Learn about maintaining your blog.