Business Communication and Blogs (Writing for Weblogs)

Business Communication and Weblogs

•   A blog (Abbreviated form of weblog) is an online journal or informational website. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject.

•   It is also known as a regularly updated website or webpage. It is run by individuals or small groups. It is written in an informal or conversational style. A person who regularly writes a blog is called a blogger.

•   The blog has both personal and business use, Blogging for business has a clear-cut purpose - money making. It helps the customers draw their attention to the products and services of your business.

•   Importance of Blog Writing

•   Running a blog makes one searchable and competitive.

•   Blog connects you with the target audience.

•   The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for your website to get discovered and visited by your target audience.

•   It is an effective lead creation tool, which allows you to showcase your authority and build a brand.

•   It is a creative, informative and engaging post, which helps build trust with your audience.

•   Blogging makes your business look more credible, especially it is important when your brand is still young and fairly unknown.

•   Nurture and convert customers.

•   Keep current customers engaged.

•   Differentiate you from other similar businesses.

•   Grow demand and interest in your products or services.

•   Structures of Blog/Weblog

Most blog includes some standard features and structures. The common features of a typical blog include:

•   Header with the menu or navigation bar.

•   Main content area with highlighted latest blog post

•   Sidebar with social profiles, favourite content, or call-to-action.

•   Footer with relevant links like a disclaimer, privacy policy, contact page, etc.

•   Writing a Blog:

•    Millions of blogs are written and published on the internet every day. It is equally likely that thousands of blog posts covering more or less the same topic compete with each other for readers' attention. Therefore, you will not only have to write well but also make sure that your blog posts are noticed on the internet. To attract readers to internet search engines such as Google, consider the following basic tips.

•    Craft your title: The title of your blog post should attract the reader's attention, but it also should follow the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) practices. For this, include a couple of relevant and strong keywords in the title. You have to anticipate the words or phrases that internet users are more likely to use while searching for the content. Use a short (Level 1) title of 40-60 characters for your blog. You can also use a longer meta-tag title that appears in the search results. Based on the description in the research results, readers decide whether they want to scroll down the webpage and read it. Many blogging platforms such as WordPress use the main title as meta-tags.

•    Introduction: Readers do not have enough time and patience to read long, complex writing on the net. A blog post must be short, precise and engaging, usually between 1000 and 1500 words. So, while writing the introduction of a blog post, avoid unnecessary background information and uncalled-for digressions. Instead, dive directly into the topic. To make the introduction interesting, think of beginning with a startling statement, a personal anecdote, or fascinating facts. Asking a question that you anticipate the readers to have on their minds could be another way of creating interest at the beginning of the blog.

•    Develop and organise the body section: The body section is the main part of the blog post. Once you have gathered information, facts, and details that you want to include in the post, organise the details and information in such a way that the readers can easily follow the ideas and information. For this, consider using headings, subheadings, bullet points, and other graphic features to emphasise key ideas. Moreover, you can use relevant images, graphics, video clips and audio files to make the blog attractive and engaging. You can also include keywords in the subheadings to ensure the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) practice. Good blogs provide internal and external links to other relevant pages and websites so that readers can get extra information on the topics they are interested in.

•    Conclusion: Your conclusion needs to be emphatic and memorable. Usually, a conclusion provides the main point summary but in a blog, the conclusion may call for action. In an organisational blog. this is where the writer can provide a link to a product, ask the reader to contact them for additional information, solicit questions, and invite readers to comment on or share the blog.

•    Reviewing the Blog: Reviewing (revising) and editing are the most important stages of the writing process. Blogs, especially external organisational blogs, are viewed and read by a wide range of audiences. A sloppy (lacking neatness and order) and error-prone blog published on the internet negatively reflects on you and your company. You should carefully review blog posts and revise them to ensure accuracy, preciseness, relevancy of the content, and appropriateness of the style. As you review the content, consider the following questions:

•   Does the title accurately reflect the content?

•   Are there any spelling errors, grammatical lapses, or misused punctuation marks?

•   Do the ideas flow smoothly? Is there a smooth transition between ideas and paragraphs?

•   Is there anything important missing? Is there anything irrelevant that should be deleted?

•   Are important links missing?

•   Are there any common errors such as subject-verb agreement, tense shift, dangling modifiers, and sentence fragments?

•    Publicising the Blog

•    Once you are thoroughly satisfied with the writing and you have made the necessary corrections and revisions, you are ready to put your blog post out there on the internet. However, readers need to find your blog too. So, you not only want to publish the blog but also to publicise it to get the readers' attention and get them to read it. To help readers discover your blog, consider the following tips:

•   Provide internal and external links to other relevant blogs and web pages.

•   Share your blog on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

•   Provide links to your blog in emails and other means of communication.

•   Consider using "tags" on your site (tags are keywords that identify the topic of each blog post).