When creating a website, it is often recommended to create a blog to make the site more dynamic. The purpose of the blog is to "bring life" to the site once it's online. While the standard pages presenting your company will remain static, the blog articles will introduce new content and allow you to cover new topics.
Beyond the editorial interest, your site's natural SEO is also targeted, as a blog is an effective way to attract new visits, especially through long-tail keywords. But once all this is set up, a challenge arises:
How to organize yourself to regularly manage a blog?
First of all, understand that this question is faced by all bloggers, even the professionals. The success of a blog hinges on one element: the regularity of its updates. Whatever topic you cover, if you publish posts regularly, you will find your audience, and if you continue, you will retain it.
Setting a Schedule
The first step to successfully managing your blog is to set a schedule. Like any other job, you need to allocate specific time slots dedicated to writing your articles. For example, if you aim to publish one article per week, schedule 1 to 1.5 hours for web writing. If you're going to do it, do it well, so don't hesitate to spend time carefully planning your article, gathering sources, etc.
However, since you have other tasks to attend to, optimize this time by planning it. And even if you fall victim to writer's block, don't run away; force yourself to write, and you'll see that in a few minutes, it will start to flow.
Finding Topics
Once you have scheduled time slots for writing your posts, you need to find topics to cover. What will you talk about? Of course, you have an idea of the general theme of your blog, but perhaps not specific article ideas. In this case, see what topics are being covered by your peers/competitors. Your industry monitoring will give you a number of ideas.
Building a Reflection
A well-organized schedule and topic ideas are a good start, but for your blog to succeed, the content of your posts must have real added value; it must be the result of reflection. We often see blogs whose content is very factual, like an AFP dispatch. You need to go beyond that, give your opinion, and position yourself in relation to the information you provide. For example, if you are an accountant writing a post about a new tax regulation, immediately discuss the changes in practices this will lead to in the professional world. In short, stating a fact is not enough; you need to add your personal touch.
Moreover, this reflection, your own, will be the DNA of your blog. Readers will come to you because you have an interesting point of view, different from other websites, or because you share your expertise.
Opening Your Blog to Comments
Final advice for running a blog: rely on your readers! If your articles are interesting, they will elicit reactions. So open your posts to comments, share them on social media. This will first allow you to benefit from substantial traffic. "Social traffic" often represents a significant portion of a blog (between 25% and 50% according to my observations).
Next, it allows new users to comment and share your articles. If an article elicits a negative reaction, take it as an opportunity because it gives you a reason to write a new article to respond and deepen your reflection.
Photo source: Nationaal Archief & National Library of Australia