Essential Tips for Starting a Small Business Blog

Blogging is serious business. Almost every small business owner realizes the significance of maintaining a regular, updated blog on his/her website. Not only does it help in search marketing, it is also a great way of connecting with your customers.

Lee Odden recently wrote a good post on AllBusiness.com about tips for starting a small business blog. The article explains what thought processes must take place before you start a blog for your website.

The article talks about how much important it is to identify your goals and target audience. Odden also gives useful tips about technicalities such as design, choice of blog hosting software, analytics, RSS Feeds etc. We also get to know various ways of linking your blog posts’ feed to status updates in Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social bookmarking and networking sites.

Odden mentions that it is a good idea to have specific ‘categories’ to segregate your blog posts, as this will help in managing your content better. He also suggests keyword research before deciding the categories, which I think is an excellent idea to

get relevant traffic as well as links.

You can read the entire article here. Please share your own tips about blogging in the comments section!

40 days Dedicated to Knowing Small Businesses

I have just started my 40 day trip around the US meeting small businesses. The objective is to meet and learn from them about their businesses. I will be in NY, LA, Miami and Atlanta during the next 40 days.

I had started off with North Brooklyn Breakfast Club where I met some wonderful small businesses. Hot potato made a demo of their iPhone app.

Today, I attended two events, first was Social Media & the Haiti Disaster. Panelists were as follows:

Moderator:

-Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and senior technology advisor, The Sunlight Foundation

Panelists:

– Ann Curry, news anchor for NBC’s Today Show
– Rob Mackey, staff writer The New York Times, The Lede blog
– Erik Parker, journalist who was in Haiti when the earthquake struck and used social networks to send images, video, tweets.
– Jason Cone, communications director, Doctors Without Borders

 

The event was good and explored various angles of journalism and social media. Ann Curry spoke about her experiences in Haiti and social media.  Back stage, Andrew Rasiej spoke about why US needs a strategic technology reserve. Overall, a very informative session. It was conducted in New York Times Building, NY.

Later today, I attended “The New Age of Social Media,” a panel discussion.

Panelists:

Mike Street – Zezza Network
Eric Hamilton – Author
Ellie Nieves – Leadership Strategies for Women, LLC
Orietta E. Ramirez – Lawyer, HR Professional & Employment Blogger

Moderator:
Anthony Quinones – CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Q Ball Media, LLC

Overall, the discussion centered around how social media can help – small business and individuals. At times, it seemed like social media got over sold. But panelists spoke about their experiences and asked the audience to focus on connecting with

people behind the profiles.

That is

it for the moment.