Not all businesses are sexy. For every luxury sports cars brand in existence, you could find a hundred industrial solvent manufacturers; for every lingerie line, a thousand types of fertilizer. I hate to say it, but even I’m not that sexy – as a content marketer and business blog manager, I just sit about all day and write until my fingers bleed. Right?
Wrong. Whilst it’s true that you’ll never see James Bond driving around in a convertible industrial solvent, there’s absolutely no reason that you, your business or your agency can’t have a sexy online presence. Business blogging is not only one of the most powerful tools for driving traffic and sales to your business; it’s also a showcase for your sexy and desirable brand. Creating a business blog which combines helpful resources with inspiring design is a surefire way to boost engagement with your visitors. No matter your industry, niche or topic, this short guide will show you how to create a sexy online presence – tackling business blog content, design and tone. Read on, and discover how to start sexy business blogging in 2014!
Business blogging should look sexy
Whilst I’ll never tell you to choose style over substance, the design of your business blog will have a huge impact on how people engage with it. Visitors to your blog will make snap-judgments about your brand, business and products, based on its appearance – and these judgments will influence how they engage with you.
Whilst business blog design is a hugely subjective area, there are a few key points that you need to address:
- It needs to look professional. Regardless of your chosen color, logo or layout, your blog needs to look like an expert made it. Business blogging in 2014 is becoming increasingly competitive, and blogs that use default WordPress themes or amateurish homemade designs will lose out. It looks lazy and cheap, and it’s likely to make a visitor think twice about re-visiting your blog
- It needs to be user-friendly. Design should never compromise the usefulness of a business blog. Fancy animated slideshows and interactive content are useless if they prevent your visitors from finding your content, reading it, and acting on relevant CTAs. Don’t distract them!
- It needs to be consistent. Most importantly of all, your blog needs to be consistent with itself and your business. Use the same colors, fonts and logo for your entire site. Encourage your readers to trust your blog, and to associate that trust with your entire website, brand and product.
Themeforest
Chances are that you don’t know how to do any of this. I didn’t. Like me, you might be put off by a lack of coding knowledge, or a reluctance to shell out big bucks for a professional designer. I have a solution that you will like: do neither.
Business blogging in 2014 is becoming increasingly commonplace, and thankfully for us, there are more and more affordable content marketing resources available. Themeforest is one such resource, and it provides easy-to-use, affordable and sexy designs – all made by professionals. For as little as $20, you can buy a complete theme to use on your website – and best of all, they’re incredibly easy to tinker with and adjust to your liking. Virtually no financial outlay or knowledge of coding required! Sexy.
Use personality to make it sound sexy
Business blogging in 2014 shouldn’t be all about corporate guidelines and strict formality – it should have a personality. By letting your personality though in each post, you can relate to the reader on a personal level. Humor is sexy. If you can make your readers laugh, they’re going to remember your blog, and they’re going to feel good about it. Humor shouldn’t be the primary drive behind your blog, but adding a little bit of personality to your helpful information is an excellent way to encourage repeat visits and engagement.
Anger isn’t quite so sexy, but adding in the occasional well-informed rant is an excellent way of keeping your business blog exciting and lively. Best of all, opinionated posts are the best way to trigger discussions and engagement with your readership. You’re likely to see an influx of comments either supporting your position, or explaining why its wrong. Remember that what you write is representing your business – and make it a fair and reasoned commentary on some divisive element of your industry. I did just this with my own niche, content marketing – and wrote a post with my take on the content marketing versus inbound marketing debate.
Target the right people
Successful business blogging in 2014 is going to be all about blog targeting. The easiest and most effective way to create a sexy, engaging blog is to share it with the right people. Whilst industrial solvents won’t ever have be as outright-sexy as perfume , they can be just as attractive to the right people. Don’t believe me? If you’re looking to deep-clean a kitchen, pouring perfume all over the floor isn’t very appealing – but finding the perfect, affordable and effective industrial solvent? Perfect! It’s exactly what you want.
In other words, you can increase the appeal of your business blog by making sure that the right people read it. Choose which social networks you want to promote in, and analyze which ones will allow your blog to reach the right people. If you’re a B2B business for example, you’re much more likely to get leads from LinkedIn promotion; and if you’re a design firm, visual media on Pinterest might be an excellent way to engage with like-minded potential customers.
Benefiting from a sexy business blog only works alongside helpful, valuable and unique blog content. If you’re looking for more business blogging strategies, check out these helpful blog posts:
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