Starting out in business? Great. You’re joining 27 million other small businesses in the U.S.  Want to avoid being among the 40 percent of small business failures each year (per CNN Money stats click here)?  Even better.

My top recommendation for newbies starting out in business: Create a standout, customer-friendly website. 

Staying in Business

You have three key tasks to accomplish in order to stay in business.

•  Make it easy for customers to find you on the Internet.
• Once your customer finds your website, keep her there.
• Have a compelling offer for your product or service.

I’m sure you’re working hard on item number 3.  I can help you with the first two.

Your Website’s Purpose

While you need a professional design, the make or break aspect of your website is your information and content.

Legendary business leader, Peter Drucker famously said, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.”   

With apologies to Mr. Drucker, here’s my take:

Your new business blog or website has one purpose.  To help you create a customer.  And then another…

You’ll save time and effort with your new business website or blog by avoiding these common mistakes.

Top 9 Mistakes to Avoid with New Business Blogs or Websites

1. Hiring a web developer before doing your homework. You’ll be miles ahead if you prepare a business website game plan. I’ll offer you pointers for yours in a few days.

2. Not profiling your top ideal buyers.  Clarify exactly who your best prospective customers are. You’ll have a head start on attracting them to your website.  Click here to learn more about ideal buyers.

3. Not zeroing in on your customers’ biggest problems. A website that doesn’t highlight your customers’ problems and priorities is a waste of time and money.  You’ll be more successful by talking about your clients’ priorities.  Not simply about your products and services.

4. Not preparing a job description for your website.  (Never thought about a job description for your website? Check back in a few days and I’ll show you how.)

5. Not using your customers’ own language on your blog or website. Your prospective customers have words and terms they use everyday.  Learn them.

6. Not studying your competition.   It’s easy to discover what other businesses like yours are doing right and doing wrong online.  Find out.

7. Not learning how to find customers using a business blog. According to studies from marketing firm Hubspot:  Businesses are now in the minority if they do not blog. From 2009 to 2011 the percentage of businesses with a blog grew from 48% to 65%.”

Here’s another Hubspot finding: Businesses are increasingly aware their blog is highly valuable: 85% of businesses rated their company blogs as ―useful, ―important or ―critical; a whopping 27% rated their company blog as ―critical to their business. You can locate the study by clicking here. http://www.hubspot.com/state-of-inbound-marketing/

8. Not setting aside a budget for your website. You can use free or low-cost website and blogging software programs like WordPress. You’ll still need some professional help unless you’re pretty technical.

9. Not learning how to research keywords for use in your site’s content. Check out the excellent keyword tutorials that Google publishes.

Put deep thought into exactly what you want your website to say about you.   Prospective clients will form an immediate impression about your business from your website.

If you’re starting out in business, take a deep breath. Promise you’ll avoid rushing to just-get-a-website-up.   Learn about your customers.  Put what you’ve learned into your website and business blog content. Track it.  Improve it.  track it…

And check back to get my recommendations for avoiding each of the above mistakes.

Image: iStock

Other posts on this topic you may like:

Top 11 Ways to Use Business Blogs to Find More Customers

How to Plan Content for Your First Website

If you want to find new customers on a limited budget it’s hard to find a better low-cost tool than business blogs.  Or, a better investment.  Unlike a Facebook page where you are a ‘renter’, with a blog, you own it and all of its content.

Business blogs make it easy for you to create an online reputation that matches your in person reputation as an expert.

Your blog helps you to find new customers in several ways.

• Show your expertise by answering your customers’ questions in a deeper way than your competition does
• Introduce new topics ahead of your competition
• Build an opt-in database of contacts more quickly than from your business website
• Make it easier for people you meet in person to get to know you and your services, products

You’ll avoid wasting time in launching a business blog if you decide in advance exactly how your blog will help you find prospective customers.  If you spend the time upfront to determine how to add your business blog into your current business activities you’ll be more successful.

9 Steps to New Business Blogs

1. Write a job description for your business blog.  The whole reason you’re setting up a blog is to increase the number of customers that contact you, try your products or services and buy from you.  Here are some ideas.

This blog is responsible for:

• Encouraging customers to sign up for my email newsletter after reading my useful articles
• Collecting customer contact information.  For example, in exchange for downloading a white paper, presentation, report or ebook
• Getting my experience well known with frequently published smart content and information
• Motivating customers to click through to my product/services web pages by giving valuable answers to their toughest questions

2. List the customer types that you’re looking to attract.   These are the prospective customers that are ideal buyers for your products and services.  You’ll want to publish different blog articles that appeal to each of the types of your ideal customers on a regular basis.

3. Conduct keyword research.  Research keywords used by your prospective customers when they’re searching online for answers.  Keywords are the terms/words/phrases that your specific customers type into Google when they’re looking for the kind of help you provide.

Finding the right keywords to use in your blog content is hugely important because customers type keywords into Google when they’re looking to make a purchase.

If you do not conduct your own research about the terms your prospective customers actually use when searching online, you risk basing your blog on random keywords.

 If you follow the all-important step of getting familiar with keyword analysis tools, you’ll be miles ahead of most businesses that guess at their keywords.

You don’t want to rely only on your own knowledge of keywords or terms that your customers may use.   After all, you’re an expert and use more ‘technical terms’ or ‘jargon’ than your customers use.

If you take time to learn how to use the free keyword analysis tools from Google and others, you’ll have a competitive advantage.  Keep in mind that the Google Keyword Tool is just a starting point in your research. Not the end point. Here is the link:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

4. Check out other blogs and websites in your area of expertise.  You’ll want to see what your competitors are doing on their blogs.  Identify topics that are discussed too much and topics that are overlooked.

See which social media sites your customers are using. Are they on LinkedIn?  What kinds of questions are they asking on LinkedIn’s ‘Answers’ section?  Who are the most popular bloggers and information websites in your industry?  This will be your ongoing competitive analysis to help guide your content decisions.

5. Develop a name for your blog.  Your business blog’s name should be easy to remember and should relate to your business name, but doesn’t have to be exactly the same.

6. Prepare your blog content calendar. Decide how often you’ll create and publish articles on your blog.  If you’re the only one creating content for the blog, you may decide to publish a new article once a week.  Whatever your frequency decision is, you must be faithful to your schedule.

Just think, if you were to create blog articles two times each week in just six months you’d have 18 new pieces of customer-friendly content on your blog!     Did you upload 18 new articles to your website in the last six months?

7. Decide if you’re going to attach your blog to your business website or establish a standalone blog. If you integrate your blog with your website and update your blog weekly, you’ll steadily increase the website visitors to your business. (WordPress rocks in this area.   It can be used for your business website and have your blog integrated.)

8. Choose a blogging platform or program.  You have tons of excellent blogging programs to choose from.   You’ll want to research them. I’ve used TypePad and self-hosted WordPress (this blog).  I love self-hosted WordPress because as a non-technical person, I can understand how to create articles, insert photos and other basics. Everyone I know who uses WordPress loves it.

The important point for you, if you’re not technical, is to choose a blogging program that you’re comfortable using. Using today’s blogging systems is much like using a word processing program.  You just need to start and get accustomed to using business blogs.

9. Find a web developer to set up your blog.  Now it’s time to work with a technical person. You want to first do the upfront work to plan what your blog will do, before you get it programmed.

I’ll be adding to these steps in upcoming posts. Have questions about these steps?  You can ask them in the comments section below.

Photo: iStock

Updated version

If you’re starting a new business and you’re like me when I started mine 10 years ago, you’ve probably got the same “butterflies in the stomach” feelings.  You’ve got tons of decisions to make about things that can make you or break you!

Starting with setting up your first website, there’s lots to learn about a new business. Where can you get the best answers?  You can search the Internet and find help on blogs and websites. You can scan Amazon and find dozens of great books about starting a business.  Ask your friends for advice. Attend webinars and seminars.  You’ll probably want to do all of these.

Without a Website, You Don’t Exist

Most likely, at the top of your list is setting up your first website.  Your website is one of the most important pillars for your new business.  You might be asking yourself, “Okay, so what does ‘content planning‘ have to do with this?”  The quick answer is “everything”.  If you follow along with this series of posts, you’ll understand why.

Let’s start at the beginning. You have many more affordable and easy to use website tools to choose from than I did.

All in all, selecting the type of web software, your domain name (www.yourcompanyname.com), and a web developer for your first website is still a big job.  Even with the recent technology advances in website software, open source (free or non-proprietary) software and other “user-friendly web building tools” used to create and manage a site.

Content First, Then Colors

I’ve seen so many new business owners rush to hire a web developer, pick out site colors, and agonize over a logo design—all before writing one word of content for their first website!   To quote an overused phrase, “content really is king”.  (Okay, right after cash is king.)

Your prospective customers will decide about working with you or buying your products based on how well your website “speaks” to them.  Because millions of websites are just a click away, customers make decisions within seconds of landing on a website. They ask themselves and determine in seconds:

Can this website content help me solve my problem?

Does this site’s information help me fix my blue widget problem?

Does it show me how to accomplish my ____ goal?

What initially differentiates one site from another?  It’s how much value the prospective customer finds in the site’s content.  You might think it’s your products, services or pricing.  However, if your customer doesn’t like what you have to say in your content, she will never stay on your site long enough to learn about your products and services!

Why Website Content is King

It’s widely accepted that the vast majority of buyers research product and service purchases online.  A December 2010 survey conducted by AOL and Nielsen found that people spend up to 50 percent of their time online “consuming content”.  Consuming content in this case means reading, scanning a website’s text, viewing online video, etc.  See the chart below.  Here is a link to the study.

As a new business, you’ll get a head start on establishing trust and credibility as an expert by creating and publishing valuable, customer-friendly information (content) on your website.

 Source: AOL Nielsen Study, June 2010

So, keeping in mind that it’s crucial what your website content says about your experience and knowledge, I’m going to share some (hard) lessons I’ve learned.

Your Content Planning

If you follow the website content planning steps I’m about to show you when creating your first website, you’ll avoid wasting time and cash.  You’ll save yourself from putting time and effort into a static, boring, looks-like-everyone else first website.

By taking the planning and execution steps I am going to outline you’ll have a website filled with information that is valuable to your prospective customers. You’ll have unique website information (content) that causes your prospective customers to spend time on your website getting to know you and the products and services you offer.

If you use these content planning techniques to put together your first website, the information will say instantly to your prospective customers:

“I understand the problems you face!”

“I am an expert at solving problems like yours.”

“Hire me!”

First Website Content Steps

In this series of  posts, I’ll be sharing more information about the above 9 steps to content planning for your first website. If you’d like to be sure you don’t miss any of my upcoming posts, click here to sign up for email updates of my posts.

For now, it’s time for you to take immediate action to be sure that your first website has content that says to your prospective customers “I understand your problems” and “I can help you” and “hire me!”.

So, right now do this:

1. Open a fresh word processing page on your PC or grab a pad of paper.

2. Starting listing all of the ways you can demonstrate your expertise and show how well you understand your prospective customers’ problems.

3. Keep adding to your list the kinds of information you can share until you have several pages of information.

Image: iStock

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a solopreneur or small to mid-size business, you might have determined that a great way to find customers is by sharing your expertise on your website, blog and other sites used by your customers.  If you’re not on the expertise-sharing bandwagon yet, you may be interested in learning more.

In today’s post we’ll be showing you a new technique for sharing your expertise in order to attract new prospects. Our topic is eBooks and they are emerging as an ideal platform for showcasing your business expertise and how-to information.  Self-publishing an eBook  combines the cost-effectiveness of creating an electronic publication with the authority-building benefits of traditional book publishing.

If you’ll try this new eBook technique, you’ll avoid missing out on a new, expanding source of prospects.  More importantly, being a published author positions you at a different level.  A book is a bigger business card!

And if you’ll adopt this new eBook idea for sharing your expertise, you’ll increase awareness about your capabilities with a new set of eBook readers (prospects) that will help you grow your business.

What You’ll Get

Here’s what you’re going to get if you use the new approach we’re about to show you:

• A new cost-effective way to showcase your expertise (content)
• A new lead generation tool
• The ability to repurpose customer-education information from your website and files by placing it in a new channel where prospects can find it
• An innovative way to demonstrate your industry expertise (buyers today want to hire, or buy, from experts)

Meet Sellbox.com

If you think that this is something that can help you grow your business, you’re probably thinking, “How can I get started?”  so let me introduce you to Sellbox and its founder, David Wogahn.

Sellbox.com is an eBook agency and David is going to share some insights about getting your business better known by publishing an eBook.   David Wogahn is an eBook and digital media publishing expert, public speaker, author, and my friend.

He’s sharing some ideas here for how you can add eBook publishing and distribution to your marketing campaigns.  You can learn more about David here or follow him on Twitter @Wogahn.

Are eBooks Popular with My Customers?

Here’s an interesting statistic from emarketer about the number of adults in the US that are using electronic devices (Kindles, iPads, etc.) to read digital books.  You can see that reading books created in digital format (eBooks)on electronic readers or laptops is a growing trend.

Source: emarketer

Your Expertise Counts

In general, in order to establish your business as an industry expert, you’ll want to share your how-to information using multiple methods.  That way, it’s easier for like-minded prospects searching online to find out about your business, experience and knowledge.  That usually means using your content-rich website, publishing an e-newsletter, creating and posting free reports, white papers, instructional videos, how-to guides and more.

eBook Definition

For our purposes, an eBook is a book that is created and prepared specifically for reading on electronic devices, such as Kindle and iPad.  There are also eReader software apps for PCs, Macs and Smartphones (Android, iPhone, etc.) that allow you to read the same eBook.  An eBook is formatted differently than a PDF file, making it easier to read on new electronic reading devices.

So now we’re going to ask David some questions:

Small Company, Big Image: How does publishing an eBook fit into the marketing campaigns for entrepreneurs and small to midsize businesses?   

 David Woghan: For consulting firms, service providers, and other businesses, publishing a book in your area of expertise is a powerful marketing tool. A book demonstrates deep knowledge and a commitment to communicating that information.  A traditional book positions the company and the author as an industry thought leader.  It also implies demand for the information presented in the book.

In other words, experts write books and customers want to hire experts.

But the term “eBook” is evolving these days with the advent of reading devices like the Kindle and iPad. It used to be that someone could create a Word document or PowerPoint, save it as a PDF, and call that an eBook. You can still do that but I think the average consumer is more inclined to think of an eBook as being more substantial than a file with five or ten 8.5” x 11” pages.

SCBI: What is the difference between publishing the eBook as a PDF vs. Kindle or Nook?

David: This is a great question Cynthia. While the PDF is easy and free to create, and you can read it on virtually any device, I think there are some compelling reasons for publishing in the Kindle format and if possible, ePub which is viewable on Nook.

Kindle has the largest market share by far so we’ll use that to illustrate the advantages. (By the way, Amazon provides free software that allows you to read a Kindle book on any Apple device, a PC, Android devices and several Blackberry models.)

• Your name and information will be available on Amazon’s website, an entirely different audience than you are probably reaching now. Think of it as another form of search engine optimization. Leading Internet marketing companies like Hubspot and MarketingSherpa are doing this today.

• You can generate income from eBook sales. Items sold for between $2.99 and $9.99 receive a 70% royalty. Ars Technica (a 10-year old Information Technology news site) published their review of the Apple Lion operating system upgrade on their website for free. But they also created a Kindle version that they sold for $4.99. They reported sales of 3,000 copies in 24 hours netting themselves $10,500 ($4.99 x 3,000 x 70%) for information that is essentially free online.

• I think the benefits from social sharing could be huge for small business. When a potential customer reads a passage they like that they can instantly share that passage on Twitter and Facebook. This has the effect of spreading your message to an even wider audience than the person who first bought your eBook.

• Reader convenience is going to increase in importance as more people read on mobile devices. Readers like the ability to annotate, highlight, share and sync their reading across multiple devices (again, Ars Technica is proof). One last point: you don’t have to sell it in the Amazon store. Companies like email service provider MailChimp offer their free guides in the three key formats of PDF, mobi (Kindle) and ePub.

Note: (ePub is used by companies that manufacture eBook readers and also sell eBooks.  Examples are Nook, Apple, Sony and Kobo).

SCBI: What makes a good eBook? Since we already have a website and maybe even a company blog can we draw material from these sources?

David: I think what you are asking is whether your readers can repurpose existing content into a new form. Absolutely. I call it “brand publishing” when something is published by the organization to essentially promote the organization.

I can share three tips for entrepreneurs and businesses thinking about brand publishing using an eBook:

Educate, don’t sell. Your eBook should not be a marketing piece but something that truly benefits the reader. Give the reader actionable advice that does not require them to call you or buy something from you.

Price it appropriately. Put yourself in their shoes as the buyer as you think about the value of your eBook. Also compare what you are selling to similar items in the Amazon store. Timely, relevant, detailed, insightful information is more valuable than freely available information that everyone already has.

Deliver quality. Invest in an attractive cover, write a detailed and accurate description, hire an editor and format it correctly. The final product is a reflection on you and your business. (You can find more information on these steps in the links provided below.)

Keep in mind that you don’t have to sell your eBook on Amazon. Just like MailChimp you can offer the file free as a download. One benefit of this approach is that your eBook won’t necessarily be held to as high a standard as it would be if you were charging people. Expectations tend to be lower for things that are free.

SCBI: Could you suggest some steps that entrepreneurs and businesses can take to get started with eBook self-publishing?

David: Sure, here are four key steps:

Step 1.  Determine what problem-solving topic your book will address. Ideally you already have some or most of the content written. The key is to have content that benefits your reader first and foremost.

Step 2.  Visit Amazon.com and/or bookstores and look for books similar to what you have in mind. How does yours differ? Can you offer new insights?

Step 3.  Get your material in good order; edit it and design a cover. Research the eBook publishing resources listed below for more details.

Step 4.  Before you hit that publish button I suggest you outline a basic marketing campaign. A press release, promotion on social networks, and telling everyone you know should be at the top of the list.

SCBI: Can you share some eBook publishing resources?

David:  Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing website is loaded with free information, and here is a link to the Barnes & Noble publishing platform called Pubit.

We also offer a number of free resources on sellbox.com. In addition to our blog posts we have created a guide to Amazon publisher services and a Kindle publishing checklist.

And visit the Calendar page on my website for upcoming presentations. I hold a monthly Kindle “meetup” and I’ll be conducting a roundtable on eBook publishing for businesses on October 6^th here in San Diego.

Thanks Cynthia, this has been fun. I hope your readers got a few good ideas.

SCBI:  Thanks, David for the ideas and for the links to resources!  If you have eBook publishing questions, post them in the comments and David will give you additional ideas.

Are you a small business owner who’d like to win a year of help in your marketing and finding new customers efforts?  If so, click over to Project Rev 2012 and check out the details of the second annual ‘small business marketing advisors and more’ contest sponsored by Deluxe.  Be sure to do so soon, the project is open for applications until Sept. 30, 2011.

Business owners like Scot Waggoner, of w. b. builders, a recent Project Rev winner had this to say about his experience with brand building and more:

With little to no marketing, we have successfully established our business as a premier remodeler. But in the economic downturn, I realized that marketing was needed to be sure that our business was more visible to those seeking upscale building or remodeling. With Julie, my Deluxe advisor, we planned a to raise our company’s brand image. I worked with Deluxe to create professional marketing collateral, apparel and promotional items.

It was showcased when we were recently awarded ‘Contractor of the Year’ in two categories by the Minnesota Chapter of National Association of Remodeler’s Industry (NARI). I now understand where we are, who our constituents are, and the importance of getting the brand out there.

I learned about the project when a nice public relations person contacted me with the info.  Then, Diane Presser, another recent Project Rev winner was kind enough to give me an interview about what she learned about keeping her website updated and using offline networking to get her business better known.  Read my post about Diane, here.

If you’re intrigued about beefing up your small business marketing, and want to apply to win, check out the link here to apply.  Maybe you know a small business that could benefit from winning a year of professional marketing advisors and some great marketing services?

Or, just check out the interesting blog posts here with marketing lessons learned by the business owners that participated.

What are Vanity Metrics?  Are you tracking Vanity Metrics or Actionable Data?  Hiten Shah, CEO of KISSmetrics, posed this and other juicy questions to the 150-ish attendees of a recent San Diego Tech Founders Meetup.

Hiten spent the evening opening the eyes of the #leanstartup audience by telling engaging stories about which web analytics (really) matter. And why.  And which web analytics are metrics that simply make you “feel better”. (Like the ever-popular, “number of unique website visitors”).

Hiten’s Web Analytics–Metrics Rule:

If the key web analytic (metric) that you follow went up or down 20%, what would you do?

Hint: if the answer is “nothing”, then according to Hiten, you’re tracking a Vanity Metric.  Not Actionable Data.

 Surprisingly (since I am so not technical or metrics-oriented) I enjoyed Hiten’s analytics presentation a lot.  Among others, we learned the difference between Vanity Metrics and Actionable Data:  Actionable Data allows you to make (smart) decisions about increasing the number of site visitors that become your customers.

What is a “Vanity Metric”?

A Vanity Metric is a number that’s easy to track but does nothing to help you predict success with your online business.  (i.e., how many unique visitors you had last month)

Here’s more on the problem with Vanity Metrics according to Eric Ries, author and founder of the LeanStartup movement:

“The only metrics that entrepreneurs should invest energy in collecting are those that help them make decisions. Unfortunately, the majority of data available in off-the-shelf analytics packages are what I call Vanity Metrics. They might make you feel good, but they don’t offer clear guidance for what to do.”

Source: Guest post by Eric Ries, on the Tim Ferris Four Hour Work Week Blog

Finding Actionable Data

If taking a deep dive into the guts of web analytics is about as appealing as doing your taxes, I’m with you.  But, we all need to get a handle on the site metrics (web analytics) that really reflect our customers’ satisfaction with our site.  And we want to drive more visitors to become customers.

So the gist of it is, by focusing on Vanity Metrics you risk missing out on clues to your customers’ view of your products.  You may miss opportunities to make site or product changes that lead to increased sales!  Or, happy customers.

What Is a “Happy” Customer?

Here’s a (startling) thought Hiten shared about how online businesses can describe a “happy customer”.  He calls it the point of “activation”.  Now you might say that the first time you have a “happy customer” is when they sign up for a newsletter on your site or maybe make a purchase.

Hiten s has a different view of happy customers.  They believe it’s when your customer first experiences the primary benefit from your product.  They call it “activation”.

•  A happy customer, or activation, happens when she enjoys the benefit of your product for the first time.  Not when she simply signs up for something.
• Activations (happy customers) are more important than sign ups. Why? Because it’s the first time the customer experiences the value of your offer.  The first time they experience your product’s primary benefit.

Can You Define Your Happy Customer?

Can you actually define the exact point when your customer first experiences the primary benefit of your product?  The KISSmetrics folks think so.

Hiten gave some “activation” examples.  He highlighted a few San Diego-based startups to illustrate how you can determine your customers’ “happy” point.

-       If you host an online exchange, like Paygr, activation might be the point at which a customer sells their first product. Not when they simply sign up as a seller.

-       If you’re PRLeap.com, a social media press release distribution company, it might be the first time your customer’s release gets a social media interaction. Or is Tweeted.

-      Take Lessons is an online service matching carefully pre-screened music instructors and music students.  TakeLessons.com might have an activation point that occurs when both the student and the teacher are satisfied with the matchup.

‘Your Mission’ Image:  Digital Telepathy blog

Analytics + Your Key Performance Indicators

Many of us install Google’s free Web Analytics package on our sites to track the number of visitors and other metrics. Congratulations if you’re using Google Analytics.  It’s a good first step!   Click here to check out Google Analytics (I won’t tell anyone) if you’re just now getting onboard.

But wait, there’s more…

According to design experts like the website User Experience guys at Digital Telepathy, you’re missing out on the kinds of insights about your site visitors that can help you take action to convert more visitors to customers.

Digital Telepathy recommends that the next step is to come up with your:

…must-track analytics, called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), that you should be watching to see how successful your efforts are.

 

You can read more about how to find and track your unique KPIs at the @dtelelpathy blog post here: Spy Strategies for Web Design: Analytics

And let me know in the comments–call it true confessions–if you’re still tracking vanity metrics.  Or if you’ve seen the light and have your own Key Performance Indicators!

If you’re a Southern California startup or small business check out the #Leanstartup group, San Diego Tech Founders Meetup.

Thanks to our Meetup Sponsors

Thanks to Brant Cooper, our San Diego Tech Founders Meetup organizer.  In his spare time, Brant speaks, gives workshops on LeanStartups, and blogs at Market by Numbers.

Also, a big shout out to the great sponsors for bringing Hiten Shah to speak to us.

Digital Telepathy, designers of web sites that deliver big results, like the site for Tim Ferris’ book, The Four Hour Body.

 Cooley, law firm to Zynga (social games) among other hot startups and cool Android app developer, FLUD.

Photo image: iStock

Blogging for your business is a different animal than most traditional marketing tactics.   A successful business blog is not a marketing campaign that has a start and stop point.  Business blogging is not a glitzy promotion that you can completely outsource to an agency.

So if you’re a beginner, here are the five success factors that I think will make your business blog launch a smooth one.

Success factor #1: Think of your business blog and its content as an extension of your daily conversations with customers and prospects.

Business owners have told me (countless times) that blogging isn’t for them because… “I’m not a writer!”

You don’t have to become a book author or even a reporter in order to blog for your business.  You’re creating your business blog because you want to share your industry experience, expertise and knowledge with like-minded people.  Much like you do today in the course of running your company.

A business blog is a lot like an “online conversation”.  When you start out with a new blog, the conversation will be one-sided.  You’re sharing valuable, useful, informative, interesting, timely information—content—with your prospects and customers.

You’ll be having similar “conversations” on your business blog that you typically have in person with prospects and customers.  When you think about topics for your blog content, you’ll be using the same sorts of topics that you discuss with your prospects and buyers over the phone, at networking events, trade shows and during face-to-face meetings.  (Of course, with the exception of sharing proprietary information.)

Success factor #2: Develop a few basic goals for your business blog.

Your blog goals should be in support of your business goals.  Create a brief strategy or a plan for what you’d like your business blog to accomplish.  A basic 1-2 page blog plan is sufficient.  Start by identifying the top goals you’d like your business blog to achieve.  Some ideal business blog goals are:

-  To build your list of prospects and find new customers by increasing the number of qualified visitors to your website.  A constant supply of fresh, accurate, and helpful content will help you increase your website visitors.

- To position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.  If your company isn’t yet well known in your industry, you can use your blog to change that.    Demonstrate your leadership, experience and vision by taking a stand on industry issues.  Drive the larger discussion on emerging issues for your industry, by writing on topics that cause people to think differently.

- To strengthen your company’s brand and your personal brand by demonstrating your problem solving expertise.  You can accomplish this by creating one-of-a-kind, useful how-to blog articles (blog posts).  Create content that shares insider tips about accomplishing goals that your prospects may not be familiar with.  Create content explaining how to expedite pesky tasks relevant to your products and services.

Success factor #3: Prepare a killer blog content plan.

List your customers’ top problems and goals.  The issues that you get the most excited about discussing when talking with your customers in person.  These are the topics that you’ll be most excited to use for creating content.   Go for the toughest problems in your industry.

The foundation of a successful business blog really is the quality of your content. You’ll want blog content that is valuable to your specific customers and prospects.   Scope out your competitors’ blog or website content.  Up your game!  Create content about topics they’re missing.  Go deeper. Go bigger.  Create content that’s in a series for an issue facing your customers and prospects.

Success factor #4: Put together a blogging operational game plan that fits your business, your lifestyle and your resources.

One of the huge benefits of adding a blog to your business website is that you can update the blog (and so your website) with fresh content weekly. Or as often as you like.  And you don’t need a website developer.  Be sure to assign team members, and yourself, to blog content creation tasks.

After the blogging system is installed on your website, adding new content is really about as easy as using Microsoft Word, Google pages or other word processing program.

Success factor #5. Stay involved with executing your business blog plan.

Completely outsourcing your business blog development and ongoing content isn’t a good idea.  Even if you hire outside writers, it’s a mistake to not remain involved just as you would with any other business initiative to grow your company.   It’s your company and your reputation is online and on-the-line.  Treat your business blog just as you would any other strategic initiative.

Valuable Content is a Must

If your customers find your business using the Internet, then the content on your business website and your company blog are crucial.  It’s tough to maintain your online brand, your online identity and to “be found” when your customers are searching without an ongoing supply of fresh content.

Following the above success factors when putting together a blogging game plan will help you whether you’re thinking about adding a business blog or are considering sprucing up your current business blog.

The first steps really aren’t about which blogging software to use.  The first steps are how well does your website or blog content engage the Web searcher that lands on your website or blog?  How well will you be remembered by your future customers?

image: iStock

Finding a steady supply of fresh topics is a top barrier for entrepreneurs and small businesses when it comes to updating their websites or blogs.  The most fertile source of fresh content ideas for your website and blogs is: your customers!

Make it a point to always ask your customers and prospects what’s on their minds.  Find out what kind of barriers they encounter when using your products and services.

Image: Flickr, by D Sharon Pruitt, Pink Sherbet Photography

Here are 15 ideas for staying on top of the kinds of how-to information your customers are having trouble locating online or offline.

1. Pull ideas from everything in your business that comes directly from your customers.  Check out recent customer or prospect emails, incoming calls, and service reports.  Think about the issues that customers discussed in your recent conversations.

2.  Keep your site’s frequently asked customer questions up-to-the-minute. Explain how to solve today’s pesky problems.  Update that stale FAQ page you put up 2 years ago.

3.  Answer questions that your customers never remember to ask. (At least not until they are stuck.)  Write how to information for questions that customers should ask you and that slow them up when using your products.

4. Your prospects probably have a different set of questions than your current customers.  Make sure each one of your ideal buyer personas (prospect types) can find website content that appeals to them on your site.

• For a consumer business, your ideal buyer personas/prospects might include grandparents, parents, spouses and friends.  These other types of buyers for say a women’s product that’s given as a gift, will have different questions than your primary buyer—the woman who knows exactly what she needs.

• If you market and sell to other businesses, your prospect buyer personas may include ‘ purchase influencers’ such as, office managers, purchasing managers, human resource managers, staff accountants, or other job functions in addition to the CEO or business owner.

5.  Be generous by sharing insider tips, little known techniques and ‘work-arounds’ for solving your customer problems.

6. Talk about the fun topics your specific customers enjoy. If you sell children’s items, talk about a new movie or DVD that your kids loved.  If you sell to businesses (B2B), write about recent industry news that may be light hearted or humorous.

7.  Ask your customers what upcoming regulations or laws they are concerned about. Especially for B2B companies, create content about tough industry issues facing your customers.  Share your viewpoint on upcoming legislation/regulations or share both the pros and the cons of a recently passed law.

8.  Share your customers’ success stories when using your products/services. Prepare brief case studies about how individual customers solved a problem, saved time, or saved money using your stuff.

9.  Prepare anonymous customer success stories. Some customers won’t be comfortable allowing you to publish his or her name, or company name.  So write an ‘unnamed’ story.

An anonymous success story example might be: “A Midwestern based manufacturing firm successfully solved XYZ problem.  This is how they did it.  And by the way they used our blue widgets.”

10. Publish website articles on topics that your competitors are missing. After asking your customers what’s on their minds, scroll through your competitions’ websites to determine what key topics are missing.

11. Create the kinds of rich, new media website content that’s not available on your competitors’ sites. Is anyone else in your industry doing online video? If not, be the leader and create videos for your site. How about slide shows or (audio) podcasts?

12. Post website or blog content that’s “in your customers own words”. Interview your best customers.  Conduct a short (3 to 5 question) interview with your customers via email.  Or video them answering 3 short questions. Best of all, the answers are “in your customers’ own words” not in your industry jargon.

13. Tap into your partner network for topic ideas. Ask your partners for the top problems they see with your shared customers.  Ask partners to write a customer-problem-solving article or a series for your website.

14. Provide genuinely helpful customer-viewpoint information, tips, strategies, tactics and ideas.  Use your product names sparingly. Today’s buyers have tons of choices when searching online to solve problems and purchase products and services. Your number one goal is to share knowledge.  Then create a relationship.  And then to sell.

15. Feature a selection of original photos. Create a website article or post for your blog that shows pictures of your products in action.

Stay relentlessly close to your customers and far ahead of your competitors.  Every chance you get, ask your customers , “…what else can we help you with?”.  You’ll have no shortage of topics for fresh articles, blog posts, pictures, videos and interviews to update your small business website.

Any other ideas for customer-friendly website or business blog topics?  Do share in the comments below.

Gold bars image: iStock