Opening a blog for your business offers many advantages for all types of companies. A blog for your business can help establish a better reputation for your brand, as well as promote awareness of your business. Year external blog, however, you can achieve that and more. These types of blogs help increase the number of visitors to your website through valuable content marketing and better search engine optimization (SEO).

Before we get sucked into the benefits of external blogging, let’s look at the basics of what really constitutes an “external business blog.”

External business blogs: defined

An external blog is a content publishing website that is a separate domain from the actual website of a business. Where an internal blog is part of a website’s domain (“http://www.yourbusiness.com/yourblog”), external blogs are their own entity (“http://www.yourblog.com”).

Business blogs often focus on a specific niche or topic that relates to the business in some way. Additionally, some external business blogs are even designed to include similar branding elements of the business. There are many ways to start an external blog for your business, but what’s really important for almost any type of blog is to have a very different approach that captures the interests of a very specific audience.

Focus the topic of your blog

Most broad-based blogs that cover many different topics fail to retain a consistent number of loyal readers and followers. This means the importance of really carve a niche for your blog and really narrows down the overall theme of the blog content.

For example, if the law firm is developing a blog for its legal practice, the topic should be focused on a specific area of ​​law. In a legal context, this concept could be taken to great extremes, as a business law firm might create a blog dedicated solely to bankruptcy litigation or creditors’ rights law.

The key is to understand the nature of your target audience and the type of content they find value in reading. Before launching any type of blog, take some time to absorb who and what the content will emphasize. Does the target audience seem big enough? Can you produce valuable content that generates interest? Does the idea behind the blog offer sustainable value?

A general tip to remember before you start is always create a blog with a purpose and only post content that offers value.

Develop goals for your blog

All blogs, both internal and external, should have a purpose. One of the most common goals of business blogs is to attract relevant readers (with compelling content) and funnel those readers to the company’s website. This practice is known as content marketing, and it helps establish credibility and trust in a business so that readers react more positively when considering the company as a solution to their needs.

Another common goal for external business blogs focuses on search engine optimization practices. The success of an SEO campaign often depends on the popularity and credibility of a website. This is where an external business blog can help.

In SEO, the links pointing to a website are like popularity votes. A well-optimized website with quality links leading to your web pages will often be recognized as popular by search engines and will therefore rank higher. Building links from an external blog is one of the easiest and highly effective techniques for generating “link popularity” for SEO and achieving higher rankings in search engine results.

A business blog can also serve as a strong branding tool and create more market awareness. This idea coincides with content marketing; however, the difference is having less call to action and more interaction. Unlike marketing-focused blogs that seek to inform and direct readers to take action, branding blogs can be fun retreats for Internet users while offering creative and insightful content.

Blog on, dude

As you develop a blog for your business, don’t be afraid to get a little creative and enjoy yourself. If you are truly passionate about your profession, you will love running your blog and sharing ideas and information with your readers. Just remember to build your blog with purpose (and goals) and keep your content fresh, valuable, and niche-focused.