“I’d like to create a blog, but I don’t know where to start.”

“I don’t have the technical skills to build a blog.”

“I have a business blog, but it doesn’t get any traffic!”

Sound familiar? As a marketing consultant, I’ve heard countless versions of these statements. Each week I meet more small business owners who want to start a business blog, but something gets in their way.

Lack of time. Lack of knowledge. Lack of a plan.

Why I Wrote About Blogging for Business

I, too, struggled with these problems when starting my first business blog in 2007. I had to focus not just on blog creation and maintenance, but on:

• Getting blog traffic

• Capturing customer leads

• Making sales

I read every blog book I could get my hands on. But most were outdated, and none addressed how blogging could grow my business. So I spent two long years in trial and error, testing out one technique and abandoning it for another until I discovered exactly what worked.

And let me tell you: you’d be amazed by all the blogging advice that’s just plain wrong. Hiding keywords at the bottom of every page, for example – while that may have gotten you search traffic in 1997, it could get you blacklisted from Google today.

As my blog’s popularity grew, people began asking me:

• What blogging software should I use?

• How do I customize my blog design without spending a fortune?

• How do I integrate a new blog with my existing web site?

• How can I get more traffic, and how do I turn that traffic into sales?

I started wishing I had a book with all the answers. Then I realized I needed to hurry up and write it myself.

What’s in the Small Business Blogging Blueprint

What I thought would be a three- or four-page guide turned into a 55-page e-book filled with:

• Tips on outsourcing blog writing, design and setup affordably (pg. 14—15)

• Easy search engine optimization strategies for targeted blog traffic (pg. 27—30)

•  Ways you can use your business blog to grow your mailing list (pg. 31—32)

• A fill-in-the-blank blogging business plan to help you set goals and streamline the blogging process, as seen on Problogger (pg. 48—55)

And the best part? It’s 100% free. Just click the button at the bottom of this post to download the book in PDF format. You can then save it to your desktop, print it out, share it with friends, or do all three!

Why FREE? Because I love blogging. And I love YOU — my readers  — for making it so worthwhile. So this is my way of saying thanks. I hope it saves you from having to learn through trial and error, as I did years ago.

What are your best blogging tips? Let me know in the comments section below.

Like this post? Subscribe by email!

Enter your email address: