Pre-reading task

You are going to read an article about the importance of planning and preparation when blogging for business. Before you read， think about your own company. Does it have a blog？ Do you know who it is aimed at？ Is it popular？ Can you think of any ways in which it could be improved？

A

If you want to get your business noticed online， simply having a website is no longer enough. Unless you have an extremely specialised product or service， the chances are that hundreds， if not thousands， of your competitors are fighting for your customers’ attention. They are all desperate to be on the first page of results for the world’s major search engines. Optimising your website using keywords and back links from other sites to get Google or Bing to notice you will only get you so far. A regularly updated blog can take you the rest of the way. If your business learns how to blog effectively， it will strengthen relationships with your existing customers and bring new ones to you， building trust and reinforcing your brand. Get blogging wrong， however， and you’ll see little in the way of rewards.

B

As with any marketing campaign， running a successful blog requires planning and dedicated resources. This is no quick fix for shrinking sales figures. Your business needs to invest in a strategy that may not yield significant or easy-to-measure results for several months. Long before the first blog post goes live， it’s crucial to consider the who， what， where， when and how of blogging for business.

C

Do you have the talent and resources in-house to set up and manage a blog？ Even one blog post a week requires several hours of work. If you decide that an existing member of staff is your ideal blogger， make sure they get the time and training needed to do the job well. If you can’t spare the resources or simply haven’t got anyone suitable， consider hiring a freelance blogger or an agency to run your blog for you.

D

If you decide to use in-house bloggers， they must be able to write in an engaging， error-free way and some specific training in writing for the web will be necessary. Nothing drives readers away faster than dense blocks of text written in overly technical or formal language. Paragraphs need to be considerably shorter than they would on paper. Simple sentences using accessible language work best. There’s an art to writing headlines that make p