Gasp!!! I can’t believe I just wrote that.
If you’ve read 31 Days to Boost Your Business Online Presence presentation or attended a workshop, you’ll know I’m all about the blog. Blogging is a great benefit for many business websites; it provides search benefits, drives traffic to your site, builds authority and credibility in your industry, and provides content to share on social media. But it can be time consuming, sometimes stressful, and requires a real commitment, so I realize it’s not for everyone.
Recently I’ve read 2 articles on why you don’t need to blog or “blogging is dumb”. I’m not that extreme but I recognize that there are some alternatives. The bad part about these posts I read is that the told you all the reasons why you don’t need to blog but they neglected to share what you can do to replace and still get the benefits, so in this post I’m sharing some of my alternate recommendations to blogging. The great thing about these alternatives is you can use them if you don’t blog and incorporate them even if you do blog.
1. Guest Blog
In 31 Days to Boost Your Business Online Presence, talk about this to too. Guest blogging is the #1 way to expand your audience and build authority and credibility. I believe everyone should get off their blog and share their knowledge with someone else. If you don’t have time to run your own blog reach out to related industries blog and see if you can write a post as a Subject Matter Expert for their blog. A great example is a post I recently published by attorney Merissa Grayson, 5 Legal Notices you need on your Website today, Merissa shared her legal expertise on website notices with our audience here at AKZMe Designs and this has been one of my most visited and shared post for the few weeks when it was published,
2. Get experts to be your bloggers.
Take the stress out of the need to write every post by inviting others to contribute to your blog. Every industry has small, medium, and large experts. You may not get Seth Goodin (although it doesn’t hurt to try) but maybe the president of your local chamber of commerce or the go to business coach in your area. Look for other leaders in your industry and ask them if they’d contribute to your site, either by writing a blog post, doing an interview, or even giving a top ten list of helpful tips. Here are a few tips on getting the perfect contributors don’t be afraid to ask, make sure you are already familiar with their work, and make it easy for them to contribute send potential topics, interview questions, if you’re at an event ask for a few minutes to get their thoughts and record the information they give you.
3. Make it a resource page.
You’ve got a few good post ideas but you don’t have time or energy for daily or even weekly writing or even you have great links to information you’d like to share. Don’t toss away the good content you already have, remove the dates from the post and rename the blog Resource Page. A resource page can have 1 or two post/topics or multiple topics. The great thing about a resource page, is the expectation isn’t that you will continuously add to it so it’s a lot less pressure than maintaining a blog. You can provide helpful information that readers interested in your business or organization may also find interesting which helps establish as a source for information and the additional content provides great SEO (search engine optimization) benefits. Here’s an example of a list resource page I did for a non-profit client http://www.dtdsicklecell.org/nj-sickle-cell-resources; I highly recommend resource pages for all of my non-profit and subject matter expert clients who don’t have the time blog.
So here you have it Guest Blog, Get Experts, and Make a Resource page; 3 great ways you can still get the traffic, search boost, and other benefits of blogging without the blog. I hope these tips help take the pressure out of the need to produce a blog post ever week and HAPPY NON-BLOGGING!!!!
20 Response Comments
Perfect! I like all this, i learn as i go!!!
Good article. I can’t wait to be able to afford a social media person.
Excellent article! Great tips! I’d love to have guest bloggers…working on that. Thank you for sharing!
Interesting tips that I had no idea about. I’m not sure about the resource page and how much traffic it would draw on a continual basis, but it would be interesting to track the numbers on this idea.
Interesting tips. I feel that it is important that we keep to our own ideas as well. People are drawn to us because of who we are. There are plenty of experts out there but they do not have our unique qualities to share and I believe that everything that happens is our lives it to make us truly the best version of ourselves that we can truly be. Just my point of view. Thanks for sharing.
I wonder if Google will penalize sites that don’t blog or frequently add new content to their site? Blogging gives businesses a way to add new content and allowing more links back to their domain name. Google seems to thrive on fresh and new content.
Good point Christy I don’t know google would penalize for not blogging but after a while you’ll get our ranked by newer content. you can still get links backs even if not you blog, thats the great part of the guest blogging option. Most sites you guest blog for are going to link back to your site (so you get the link back) and they will advertise on their social media so your expertise will be shared as well
This is excellent information for those out there who are intimidated by writing but really would like to share great information.
It is very interesting to know they are other alternatives for those who don’t have time to blog! Very informative article!
Thanks Norma, I have more clients that don’t have the time or the passion to blog that I felt the need to research what could work for them and these where some of the strategies I found. I tell my clients the most important part of a web strategy is do what works for them
The good thing about the resource page is you can still up date it and add information, the renaming and removing dates just takes some of the pressure off of having to produce content once a week. In addition, many visitors perceive the name “Resource ” to be more valuable information than what they find in a blog just based on the name alone
Great article and you are giving great information here for people who has less time.
Thanks for posting this! I’m a new business owner and I’ve been considering whether or not it would be a better for me to create a blog for the business or become a guest blogger. Although I haven’t made a decision yet, I can now consider your list of alternatives.
Great points to consider. I’ve been building out a few resource pages myself…
Thanks for the article;) I feel like blogging is a way for me to release what I think and so I would not want any guest bloggers,but I see your point as well:)
I like the resource page idea. But not sure I agree with the guest blogging & the getting guest bloggers as a viable alternative (saving time). For one, guest blogging nowadays should be done very carefully in regards to Google’s penguin and panda, and how you link back, have duplicate content, etc…. so it requires a bit of knowledge and oversight to do it right. Number two… It still takes quite a bit of time and commitment and REGULAR followup to find the right partners with high traffic and readership, as well as knowing how to ‘convince them’ to take you on (it has to have benefit to them & their readers and give them incentive)… and the one about having guest bloggers, like creating an ‘authority site’ can be a huge full-time job in and of itself.
It’s my personal opinion that operating your own blog is by far the easiest place to start. If you don’t have time or can’t commit to it, set easier goals for yourself, start with once a month. But the other options require a lot more time and dedication and knowledge to do it right, so blogging yourself is definitely the starting point
Just my friendly $0.02
Interesting ideas! Definitely worth considering! Thanks!
Great ideas to enhance the blogging experience and exposure.
Loved the twist you put on this post! I knew from the title is was going to be interesting. Great tips indeed
Yes its really important to have a blog for your business. Thanks for sharing your blogging tips with us.