7 Steps to Better Business Blogging

The following reader quick tip was submitted by Ann Handley from Marketing Profs: Daily Fix.

One of the questions I often field comes from business owners who are thinking of launching a blog but are wondering, “What can I write about…?”

A recent post by Poynter contributor Vince Maher does an excellent job of giving some guidance on what businesses can write about, and, more importantly, how they can write it. All 11 tips are here but here are the seven points most critical for businesses:

1. A blog entry is a stub for conversation. Think about creating posts that start conversations, have a point of view, and appeal to the interests of your readers. All writing must consider the audience, but for bloggers, it’s critical.
2. Write tight headlines that pique interest. Think punchy, short, descriptive headlines that will pique a reader’s curiosity.
3. Be scan-friendly. Bullet points (like these!) are easy to scan and have the useful by-product of lending structure to your thoughts.
4. Link to the context. This is really important: if you write about something that other blogs are talking about in a post or conversation, offer links back to their conversations to give your post some context.
5. Troll the blogosphere for secondary conversation. Tools like Google BlogSearch, Bloglines and Technorati will help you track what other bloggers are saying about your post. Try to update your blog with links to those conversations if they add or augment yours.
6. Be active in your own conversations. Comment back to your readers. Social media is all about relationships.
7. Create buzz everywhere. Include lots of relevant inbound links to your post. Via Technorati or other search tools, seek out other blogs that are discussing the same or similar issues, and participate in the conversation there.

So what do you think? Did I miss anything or can you expand on any of these guidelines?