The 5 Bee-Attitudes of Small Business Blogging

Posted by Somedia on in Content & Growth

A honey bee with a full pollen basket on a flowering plant
A honey bee with a full pollen basket on a flowering plant. Photo: Prasan Shrestha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Small business owners, it is never too late to get your blog buzzing. Whether you have one or two posts under your belt or years of archives behind you, there are five rules worth following. Because we love bees, we call them the Bee-Attitudes.

1. Be consistent

Set a posting schedule and stick to it, because a schedule builds anticipation. Start with one post a week or every two weeks and increase it only when you are comfortable. Build a library early: older, evergreen posts often bring in more search traffic over time than whatever you published last week.

2. Be smart with your headlines

You have a few seconds to win a reader. Numbers and "how to" promises work because they tell people exactly what they will get. Make a promise in the headline that the post is useful and to the point, and then deliver it.

3. Be engaging

Mention the people whose work helped you, credit them properly and tell them you did. A genuine shout-out goes a long way towards getting your post shared by people with bigger audiences than yours. Finish each post with a question, and answer the comments it gets.

4. Be visual

You do not need to be a designer. Simple template tools make it easy to create a header image, a quote card or a short slideshow for every post. Visuals make posts more shareable and give you ready-made material for social media.

5. Be self-promoting

Share every post on your social channels, more than once and in different formats: a quote, a statistic, a question. Add new posts to your email newsletter too. A blog nobody hears about is a diary.

These rules work for any niche. A small poker club or a sports bar that shows the big games could blog about tournament schedules, house rules and match-day menus, and then turn each post into a week of social content. The buzz comes from showing up regularly with something useful.