Business blogging is not always easy.
A business blog is subjective but unlike a private blog you still are writing for people interested in your trade, products and services and not necessarily you as a person watching movies and eating out.
You can’t annoy people too much, you can’t be too
- personal
- funny
- outspoken
So you need ideas that are creative while not being too creative as to scare away your business audience.
To assist you I collected a list of 50 blog post ideas for business blogging for any industry. You can apply it in most niches I think. Some of these ideas are the bomb and will bring you publicity and popularity while others focus on highlighting your expertise or are part of a social networking strategy. Some of the post ideas are all of these at once.
- Envision the future of your industry by extrapolating the current developments
- Explain why everybody should care for your trade and not only specialists
- Make a list of famous people who deal or dealt with issues related to your business
- List 30 or more online resources for business people in your industry
- Review a publication dealing with your industry
- Make a list of the top myths in your industry and debunk them
- Disagree with a high level personality in your business, prove her or him wrong
- Make a list of the top 10 blogs in your niche
- Report from a trade fair
- Compare the your national market to markets abroad
- Collect the best blog postings in your niche and compile a best of-list
- Expand your focus to a similar area of expertise by comparing
- Write down a code of ethics for your blog and your business as a whole
- Explore and depict a niche social media platform for your trade, if there is none use a forum to do that
- Add a forum to your blog or site if your site has a big enough community to sustain it
- Break the rules of your trade by remodeling them and adapting to current situation, write about it
- Go off topic and link a topic from everyday life back to your business “10 Ways SEO is like Base-Jumping”
- Make a list of WordPress plugins that are most useful for your industry “The 10 Best WordPress plugins for Graphic Designers”
- Reach out to your clients and fans: “What would you like to change in [insert your product or service here]?”
- Display attractive images of your products, several of them, in the best case your own products
- Analyze the current climate in your industry and explain the ramifications
- Identify leaders in your area and ask them to guest post on your blog or write for their blog instead
- Show what went wrong in your company, why and how you dealt with it, learning from mistakes is very helpful for others
- Compare the new vs the old ways of doing your buisness
- Highlight top female bloggers or experts in your trade
- Create fictional and visionary product description
- Satirize a very well known personality, be it of your trade or outside of it
- Write an allegory about your idol doing your business like “The Bruce Lee Method of Business Blogging”
- Thank your 10 favorite readers and/or commenters
- Expose a scam in your industry (make sure to consult a lawyer in advance)
- Take a big brand (or several) and use it as an example for best practices vs mistakes
- Use humor to lighten up a boring topic “I Can Haz Pay Per Cat? The Lolcats Way of PPC”
- Explain the local advantages of your company, do not hide behind modesty: “Oxford: SEO since 1542″
- Review a book dealing with your topic that really displays thinking outside the box
- Combine your topic with another one, usually but wrongfully not combined with yours, like SEO and graphic design
- Express your own personal view an a highly debatable issue and do not just repeat common ground opinions
- Make a short movie to show on your blog, this can be something funny or just simply you speaking
- Create a list of indispensable software or web tools for your job
- Take a common issue many people care about and explain how it relates to your business
- Introduce a new business model in your trade or better, several of them
- Be the first to break news, for instance reveal your new product via the blog
- Check your search engine referers and write postings for those queries that had no matches until now
- Check in your stats which post is the most popular one and write a follow up
- Join a trade organization and explain why you did it
- Make a donation to a good cause and blog about it
- Introduce the 10 most promising bloggers in your industry
- Check Digg, StumbleUpon or Technorati to find out what’s most popular right now and find a new angle to it
- Engage in a discussion on a forum and reprint on your blog
- Ask people on Twitter a question and blog the best replies
- Make a list of blogging ideas specifically for your industry
Remember that business blogging is about value. That’s indeed the most crucial difference between private and business blogs. In private blogs people want to express themselves, business bloggers want to create value for others. So while writing a post for a business blog always consider this question: Of what use can this article be to potential clients, people in my industry and the general public?”
Whew Lordy is that a list!
Thanks for burning the midnight oil on that one…it’s a great asset and/or reminder to any blogger out there, business-oriented or otherwise!
for 47 I would add Sphinn. Also a good resource for fresh ideas and posts.
Another fantastic list. Nice one lads.
51. Make up a list of topics for B2B blogs.
Dude, really, blogging is the Internet equivalent of a 14-year-old girl’s diary. There aren’t but, perhaps, 250 people in the country with enough insight and talent to make a blog worth reading on ANY subject. Everybody else is just noise.
Many are called. Few are chosen. Guess where you fit?
When I asked a business owner to start a blog, they claimed that blogs are for teenagers and all I can say is that they are totally wrong as they do not see what is the current trend on the Internet.
Even if the accept my thoughts, they will find difficulties in trying to figure out what to post on their business blog. I guess I am going to refer all of them to this post.
Nice job.
Wayne
This is an amazing post i agree that business blogging is different from other type of blogging. This particular post will surely help as in blogging you need to consider many factors and among them research on your own subject is the key.
Amazing Post.
Amit G
http://www.promotionranking.com
Great list of ideas for a business blog, but I would leave out anything to do with running a website or blog. You certainly would not want to help your online competition.
‘There’s more being written online, than read’…best line is it’s about adding value. So much content is simply reconstituted and repacked, there’s a real thirst for some original thinking. This will hopefully spark some!
Todd: Thanks for the feedback.
Gayan: Of course Sphinn is a great resource but taking it directly as blogging inspiration is not that good, as the ideas on display there have been already put into practice, so you just copy in a way, especially if you publish your post shortly after.
Keith: Thank you!
“Dave”: I know that spending the weekend at your computer is not fun. If you’re frustrated get a life instead of abusing the comment form. I don’t have to guess, I know where I belong, that’s why you do not even have an URL to post here in your comment and I’m writing at one of the most important SEO blogs in the world. Also please read before commenting, #50 is exactly what you propose as #51.
Wayne: Exactly, business people can’t measure ROI of blogging and they are scared but they lose real money not blogging. It’s somewhat like explaining them they need a shop window.
Amit: Feel free to send me links to any blog posts inspired by this list. Send to onreact at onreact.com
John: That’s the old school, closed source mindset that makes people fail on todays web. Your competition can get the info elsewhere but when you share the whole world knows that you have the know-how.
Doreen: Indeed, the value is key. Without value business blogging fails.
Thank you for all these ideas! I know they can be the bomb and will bring you publicity and popularity.
Again, Thank you for your information.
http://www.empresademercadeo.com
Tad, ignore Dave.
As someone that gave up a £80k job thanks to business blogging, i am proof, as are you, that business blogging is very important indeed.
As a fellow SEO of many years – and considered to be quite successful myself, I can honestly say that this is an excellent blog and is indeed one of the most important SEO blogs on the net.
Keep up the very brilliant work that you are doing on here.
Fab post. Some fresh blogging ideas are always useful. Thanks so much — and thanks for including some really fun ones (#32). Just because it’s “biz blogging” doesn’t mean it has to be boring, overly serious, or just a plain snoozefest.
Thanks a bunch.
Lani Voivod
co-owner and Content Lover of Epiphanies, Inc.
http://www.EpiphaniesInc.com
“A-Ha Yourself!”
Great blog, tons of valuable information. Thanks for sharing.
Great timing and worth bookmarking. Once my company’s new website is done, I plan to do a lot more blogging on their behalf.
You did a lot of homework for me/us. Thank you!
I’m in the process of putting together a plan for my company to adopt a corporate blog, and this helps more than I can say! I already have running lists of “post inspiration” topics but these ideas really have me thinking in overdrive how my work associates involved in different aspects of our business can go in their own direction on just about each of these.
My PR position makes #45 particularly enticing, but we are definitely humble about the charitable things we do, so it might be a challenge discussing it without looking like we are patting ourselves on the back, but I look forward to challenges like these.
This is an excellent resource, I am grateful to Chris Brogan for tweeting it – otherwise I may never have seen it.
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This blog is really nice and informative. We are pleased to know this blog is really helping people.
Perfect story to share with prospect and existing customers. Many of them are confused, and this will be a helpful primer for them.
Kevin Donnellon
Wow! Your list of 50 blog posts ideas is extremely helpful. Thanks
This gives me so many ideas my head is swimming.
Thanks
Rick
Your web page doesn’t correctly work in safari browser
I wish I had this list when i started working online. But now that I hav it I am going to share with all my friends. Thanks for sharing.
Thats a good list – I especially like the notion of drawing parallels between your business and other famous individuals. It helps create an air of under dog punching above their weight!
I’m going to review the list in full later tonight, cheers!
Just what I was looking for! I wanted to add a business blog to my site and was struggling with topic ideas. I think some of your ideas for lists will definitely help me. Thanks again!
this list is simply stupendous…….its g8, magical, …………..
I too keep on wondering what to publish in my business blog coz in that you just can’t blog bout anytihng n u r short of ideas but now after reading this i can blog regularly. Dude u r g8…….u have solved one of my big problems.
Excellent ideas. Most resources talk to the private orhobby bloggers, and this list addresses a group that has not been considered much. It is easy to find info on how to make money with your blog, and there are lot’s of great resources out there, like David Risley’s blog, but what happens with those businesses where the blog is only a small, but important part of marketing.
Excellent work.
I’m running out of ideas and topics to post on my blog right now. This one is a big great help. Thanks for sharing this post.
Thank you for generating such a great idea! I seldom post on blogs but I have to this time because the idea is so great!
I particularly like the one about talking about a random part of your life and linking it back to your business. It’s a great way to make interesting articles and write a compelling headline like the basejumper one cited above. Great list.
I second the guy who says he was running out of ideas, I was doing the same just now. It seems I get these moments of inspiration and if I don’t capitalise on them I just don’t get the results that I could. I appreciate your taking the time to post these great Ideas!
Thanks Joe @ Business Ideas
This is a really useful list, something to really try and promote ideas to create articles from.. we currently run a business blog and its all to easy to keep falling back to just writing about whats going on in the business news and sharing your views on it. Thanks!
great ideas
thank you
awesome stuff !! its like my next to do list now !!
Hi thanks for these great 50 ideas, I will implement those that can.
Best regards
Thank you! I plan to use some of these as well as recommend some of these to my guest bloggers!
Great post about blogging ideas for blogs that are meant to help individuals do whatever it is that they are looking for. I will definitely bookmark this page and refer to it for future blog post that I plan to write for my business/personal development blog. Oh yea, and your name is pretty cool.
Nice list…and fantastic ideas. Especially like the asking on Twitter and then blogging…
That is some list! great ideas and a great list to get the creative juices flowing. blogging for business can be so exhausting!
These are the great lists of ideas I have definitely read for this day and it will be very useful for everyone to follow what you have said in here. You gave us an idea to pursue on on this kind of business and to keep harder to achieve what we love to do.
Wowza – thats my blog topics wrapped up for quiet some time. Thanking you kindly.