Let’s be honest: blogging is hard work.

Alongside the demand of writing regular content, thinking of new ideas for posts, and managing your business, you may find yourself going around the bend if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Blogging, however, isn’t something you should miss out on. It can help you boost your sales, increase website traffic, make your presence known, and show potential clients you really know your stuff.

In this post, then, I'm sharing with you five helpful tips for blogging for your business:

Make a Publishing Schedule – and Stick To It!

We’re creatures of habit. We love routine. So rather than publish a post whenever you feel like it (which, to be honest, may be every couple of months), consider creating a publishing schedule so readers will know when to expect your articles and updates.

You don’t need to put any undue stress on yourself by posting daily, but even posting just once a week on the same day can establish a sense of routine and connect you with your readers.

Keep a List of Blog Post Ideas

It’s 3pm - an hour before your next scheduled blog post is supposed to go live. The problem? You haven’t written anything yet, and you don’t know where to start.

Blogging becomes so much easier when you plan ahead (trust me, I know!). Whether your list of post ideas has five items on it or 500, have something to work with so you don’t waste precious time twiddling your fingers over your keyboard, wondering what to write.

One handy way to generate blog post ideas is to listen to your clients. When someone asks you a question or leaves you criticism or feedback, you may just have stumbled on something great to address in your next post.

Optimise your Posts for SEO

Don’t let your blog turn into a desert of blog posts with zero traffic. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) allows your content to be discovered by the right people. This includes adding keywords that will help your website pop up on search engines when a potential client looks something up.

Check out Moz's popular Beginner’s Guide to SEO, filled with the comprehensive information needed to bring your blog into the limelight.

Pull Together an Email List

Grow your readership with an email list. Subscribers can turn into loyal readers, who can then turn into clients for your business. You can use a number of relatively inexpensive email list managers, including MailChimp and Constant Contact, to plan out, write, and schedule regular email updates. Email lists are especially great for keeping readers in the loop when blog posts go live.

Hire a Blog Writer

Yes, hiring a blogger may not be cheap, but time is money, and the time you spend managing your blog could be time spent on your business. It’s not impossible to manage your blog and your business at the same time, but employing someone on a freelance basis to write for you doesn’t have to be an unreasonable option.

Hiring a professional blogger or copywriter (pick me!) is a lot cheaper than you think. Since they’re a specialist in writing blogs, your blog will theoretically end up being better than if you’d written it yourself, leading to boosted sales that eclipse the initial cost. So, if blogging still seems daunting, leave it up to the pros!

Have any more business blogging tips to share? Let us know in the comments below!

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So perhaps you know (or maybe you've been told) that your company should probably have its own blog. And if you've stumbled on this post here on my freelance copywriting site in the first place, it's because you're interested to know just how and why you need one. After all, isn't a blog just more work for you and your employees?

The short answer is 'yes'. Of course it is. But more work ultimately means a higher number of engaged customers and, quite possibly, a higher number of sales too. Plus, by choosing a West Yorkshire copywriter like myself, no one in your team need even be any busier.

To help you better understand why you could do with a blog - and one that's regularly updated with good, relevant content, too - I've put together some top tips. Read on...

1. It Gives You and Your Team a Voice - Okay, so you feel as though you already have a voice. After all, you've spent days, weeks or even months perfecting your website copy to ensure it best reflects you, your team and your company's values. But ask yourself this: 'Do your customers really know you?' Do they know why you do what you do, what makes you tick and, more importantly, how seriously you take the quality of your services, products or the way you treat your customers in general? By adding a blog to your site (ask your web developer - it's easy!), you're extending your 'voice' by giving the people who put trust in you and your brand another platform to read all about the great things you're doing.

2. It Gives You Authority - You'd like to position yourselves as real experts in your field - and in having a blog (and keeping it regularly updated) that's exactly what you're doing. Your blog really is an extension of you and your 'shop front', as it were. Use it wisely and only post the updates that will reflect yourself and your staff in the very best light possibly. Think along the lines of the great work you're doing in the community or for charity, and less about the 10-hour boozeathon you recently took your team on.

3. it's Free PR - So I say 'free' here, when really it would cost you a little less than £40 a week. What you would be getting though - on top of good content for your own site - is the chance to be picked up in Google in terms of SEO. The more blogs you upload to your site, the better. Plus, by giving customers and potential business partners a little bit more insight into what you do, you're strengthening your brand's identity as well. it's win-win, really. Oh and according to a recent HubSpot survey, 60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers - kerching!

4. It Keeps You Focused - If you've ever felt like you're 'doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that', with very little focus regarding a long-term marketing plan, a freelance copywriter can help you by ticking at least one thing off your 'to-do' list: blogs. They'll base the content they create around your company's goals, and ensure every single post is tailored towards its intended audience: your customers. Researching and writing content sometimes months in advance, you'll have an at-a-glance look at where your company's heading in the foreseeable future. Which means you'll be able to better plan your business's marketing strategy general.

5. It Helps You Determine Who Your Customers Are - The chances are, you'll have a good idea who your customers are already. And this is definitely the case if you have a physical shop front. But perhaps you don't. Or maybe you'd just like to know more about your customers - and what it is that entices them to make a purchase. In the back-end of your blog, you'll be able to track readers via click-throughs, shares and comments. Perfect if you're looking to build a more long-term marketing strategy!

Intrigued to get started with a blog? Get in touch today and I can pull together a content plan based on what your customers want to see and hear from you and your team. For as little as £35 a week, I can deliver a well-researched and, more importantly, well-written piece of content ready for you or your employees to upload onto your site. Then simply wait for the customer enquiries to come your way. Get in touch!

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