It’s true that nearly anyone is capable of launching a company blog, writing a paragraph or two, and hitting publish. While this is certainly a good first step of blogging for business, it takes a certain caliber of dedication, knowhow, and inspiration for a blog to generate real revenue. Once a business owner is able to hit their blogging rock star status, the real payoff of blogging for business begins.

But the truth is that many business owners are blogging novices and struggle to come up with engaging topics, let alone write a blog post that actually converts. Can the average business owner really become a blogging rock star and amplify conversions?

The answer is yes, but there’s a roadmap to success to follow first.

Channeling Your Inner Business Blogging Rock Star

It’s important to realize that achieving rock star status doesn’t happen overnight. No rock star is born with the automatic ability to play the guitar—sure, there’s a talent involved, but guitar playing is also a learned skill. The same can be said in the world of blogging for business—you might not be cranking out top-notch content yet, but you can certainly get there with consistency and dedication.

Channeling your inner business blogging rock star starts with asking yourself several questions:

• What purpose does my company blog serve?
• How will my blog posts answer my customers’ questions?
• How much time can I realistically dedicate to my company blog?
• How will my blog differentiate itself from competitor blogs? What is my unique angle?

The first step of business blogging isn’t actually writing your first post and pressing submit—it’s having an actionable plan to execute the goals of your blog.

Fine Tuning Your Blogging Goals

Just like a rock star tunes his guitar, you need to take time to fine-tune your blogging goals and expectations. It’s not enough to say that the goal of blogging for your business is to make money. This is a given, and frankly this goal is too vague to be able to catapult you into success.

And speaking of making money, it’s imperative to remember that blogging for business doesn’t necessarily mean instant ROI. It can take a bit of time to start seeing revenue rolling in, so exercising a little bit of patience is necessary.

This doesn’t mean that you need to write the goal of making money off of your list. You can surely make money off of your blog, but it’s often achieved with the assistance of other business blogging benefits, such as:

• Increasing website traffic
• Increasing awareness of your business
• Building relationships
• Building an e-mail list
• Improving SEO rankings

These benefits of business blogging all help with flowing your customers through the sales funnel, which ultimately leads to conversions down the road.

Defining Conversions in The World of Business Blogging

The beauty of business blogging is that you don’t have to rely on one sole conversion method. For example, if you send out a direct mailer, the only real conversion that you have to rely on is the provided phone number. No phone calls mean no conversions—but this isn’t how conversions work with business blogging.

A conversion in the world of blogging can be considered as:

• An e-mail inquiry
• Customer blog subscription
• Phone call
• Social media shares
• Membership sign ups
• Product purchase

Each of these conversions translates to gaining exposure, building your audience and new relationships, setting leads and appointments, and making money. So, understanding the variety of conversions and how they translate into sales will allow you to identify your goals more clearly. When you have clear goals, you have something tangible to work toward along with achieving rock star blogger status.

Finding Your Fan Base

Rock stars are nothing without their fans. And as you’re already well aware, businesses are nothing without their customers. The key is to find your ideal customer and cater your blog specifically to them, which in turn helps grow your readership (and your fan base).

Don’t write your business blog with the objective that your audience is “everyone.” This couldn’t be further from the case, and this thought process could actually hinder your success in the world of business blogging.

For example, it’s unlikely that a classical music lover would care much for rock sensation Ozzie Osborne. Ozzie didn’t start his career by trying to please those who prefer to listen to classical music, rap music, or otherwise. He understands that his audience is fans of rock, and he knows what they are looking for with music and how to deliver.

This is why it’s so important to truly understand whom you are writing for in your company blog. If you can’t answer that question, envision your ideal customer. Consider their age, gender, education, and income. This data will help you move forward with writing blog posts to specific people instead of making a shot in the dark.

When your audience isn’t targeted, it’s next to impossible to amplify conversions. Build your fan base through research and testing, and you’ll see your conversions begin to improve.

Writing Your Breakthrough Blog Post

Nearly every big artist has that “one song” that helped skyrocket his or her way to fame. It’s the song that their ideal audience plays on repeat while making its way to the top of the Billboard charts. Their breakthrough song is the final push to launching their career into stardom.

A lot of times, breakthrough blog posts (and songs) happen by accident. There’s no way of telling that a specific post will amplify your blogging efforts and generate endless amounts of conversions. If that were the case, we’d all be blogging rock stars and completely unstoppable.

Even though we can’t predict the exact outcome and ROI of a blog post, there are ways to increase the chances of a breakthrough blog. We can do this by including some of the characteristics of a high quality blog post, such as:

• Writing business blogs that entertain and engage your audience. The best business blog posts are those that offer valuable information in an entertaining and engaging way. Bland blog posts won’t cut it with your audience, and they surely won’t help you become a rock star company blogger.
• Injecting creativity into every post. Aim to get creative with every post whenever possible. Creativity helps your audience remember your brand and makes you stand out from your competitors. Remember that being creative doesn’t mean that you have to do something crazy—simply offering a unique perspective can be enough. But if you have a creative bone or two in your body, the sky is truly the limit.
• Going beyond customer expectations. If you’re using your blog to answer frequent customer questions, offer more than just a basic answer. Go the extra mile to offer the best advice possible. To take it a step even further, image that your blog readers are paying customers. What would you say to them if they asked for help?
• Original images and presentation. Presentation is an often-overlooked characteristic of a blog post. Your blog’s layout and presentation can truly make or break your chances of a breakthrough post, and there are several reasons why. First, people tend to skim blogs rather than read straight through. If your blog is presented in one big block of text, it’ll turn your audience away. Second, poor presentation is just a turnoff in itself. It’s one of the quickest ways to make your customers forget about you all together.
• Skipping the sales pitch. Customers aren’t coming to your blog to read a big sales pitch. They can smell these underlying intentions from a mile away and it will likely do nothing but make your conversions tank. There’s a time and a place for a sales pitch, but it’s not on your company blog.
• Offering value every time. Above all else, be sure that your blog post offers some kind of value to your customers. This means that you’re helping them solve problems, answering questions, offering advice, and genuinely being helpful.

Once again, it’s nearly impossible to predict what blog post will be your breakthrough. But like a true rock star, keep on keepin’ on until you strike the right note.

The Fast Track to Rock-Star Quality Blogging

Being a rock star business blogger means that your content is top notch—it’s the best of the best, and it works on improving your business from SEO to generating leads. While some rock stars have seemingly risen to fame over night, it’s important to keep yourself grounded and realize that successful blogging takes time. However, you can start writing rock-star quality blog posts today by incorporating creativity, engaging your audience, and offering value from every angle.