Small business owners are trailblazers. They take an idea from its inception to flourishing, equipping themselves with skills and knowledge daily to keep up with their growing businesses’ needs. They learn everything from finance to marketing, understanding every in and out of business ownership.
And while entrepreneurship can sometimes feel solitary, small business owners are never truly alone. There are countless other innovators on similar journies who share their experiences, hardships, and learnings. While some keep things private and write journals, others like to help potential entrepreneurs by writing public blogs.
Here’s our cut of six excellent small business blogs, packed with useful information to help you run your business and remind you that your entrepreneurial journey is in good company.
But why follow small business blogs?
We live in a technologically advanced era where industry trends change daily. What may be great today might fade once a newer version enters the market. Similarly, companies develop more efficient business-optimizing tools to make company owners’ lives easier. But keeping up with everything alone is not simple.
That’s where small business bloggers step in. They track developments in digital marketing, social media, and other rapidly changing facets of business administration, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and workflow tools. And these writers cover the timeless basics of running a company, like managing finances, communicating well with clients, and drafting contracts.
Small business blogs are libraries of beneficial, up-to-date information, giving entrepreneurs access to the latest.
6 great small business blog examples
Here’s another fact about blogs: there’s a wealth of them –– 600 million, to be exact. So it’s challenging to know where to start. Some highly trafficked blogs may appear in browser search results, but you can’t expect to stumble across all the necessary information. Check out the following six recommendations as you explore this vast universe:
1. CorpNet
CorpNet, a company that helps small businesses launch operations, has a blog rich with information on topics any entrepreneur should be familiar with. Read up on how to seed, launch, and grow a business, manage crises, and tackle accounting.
2. Noobpreneur.com
As the name implies, the site is for all newbies. This blog, about starting a business, publishes new articles daily, so there’s always something fresh to read. And the quantity of content is impressive. Lose yourself in a deep dive into branding, client communication, or performance analytics. The site categorizes articles for browsing ease.
3. Duct Tape Marketing
This small business advice blog focuses on advertising suggestions for contemporary entrepreneurs, approaching topics like content marketing, mobile SEO, podcasting, and social media. If you’re an auditory learner, you can also tune in to Duct Tape Marketing’s podcast to know more about marketing leaders and their wholesome journeys.
4. Small Biz Survival
This blog directs at brick-and-mortar businesses trying to survive — and thrive — in non-urban and rural settings. With articles on how small-town tourism is still “cool” and why you should bank locally, this site is for anyone with a physical presence and a target demographic close to home.
5. Young Upstarts
This blog for young businesses reaches a unique level of nuance, featuring pieces on specific aspects of running a company. Explore advice on niche issues, such as whether a law firm should hire a salesperson and how to partner with a freight shipping company. The blog also covers broader strokes, like how to ace an interview or connect with clients.
6. Ideas Plus Business
Created by a digital marketing professional, the blog caters to small businesses across multiple industries. The site publishes content on business, finance, marketing, and more written by industry experts globally. With blogs on why cloud automation is crucial for small businesses and how to establish an engaging brand experience, the blog helps entrepreneurs build a solid foundation for their businesses.
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Want to write your own blog?
A phenomenon occurs when we read and connect with a text. We realize we might have something to say on the topic and perhaps even feel inspired to start writing. If reading these blogs has encouraged you to create yours, follow your instincts. Chances are you have expertise that can serve someone else.
In fact, blogs are savvy marketing strategies. You can establish yourself as an industry authority and attract viewers and new potential clients, driving traffic to your website and business. Here’s how to get started:
- Define your target audience: Directing your content to a niche group is essential, as this information will help you determine what to include in your posts and inflect your voice. For instance, if you write a blog for other small business owners, your target audience is primarily your peers. This means you can use certain marketing or business jargon because your contemporaries may already know the fundamentals.
- Create a content calendar: Blogs offer up-to-date information, so writers must create content quickly. And if you don’t want to lose your audience’s interest, it’s also a good idea to post consistently. Create a content calendar with a plan for the articles you’ll write and when you post them, and hit a cadence like new articles every two days so your readers know when to check back.
- Optimize your blog for search engines: Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for your blog’s success. That’s because SEO determines a webpage’s ranking in search results. This is how it works: A user plugs a search term into a web browser, and the tool culls through the information on the internet to find what the person is looking for. The browser then determines an article’s relevancy by crawling the text for related terms. So pack your articles with terms a web user could search for, allowing your articles to float to the top of search results. You can learn which search terms track well using a third-party SEO ranker, like Keyword Tool from Google.
- Promote your blog on social media: Drive traffic to your blog from your professional social media accounts, such as Instagram Business and LinkedIn. You can even post blog-style articles on LinkedIn for your peers to peruse. Promoting yourself isn’t shameless –– rather, it’s a smart way to convert social media followers into blog readers while your site takes off.
- Monitor your blog's performance: Over time, your readership should grow. Websites have proprietary metrics tools that can help analyze your success. Use these tools to track growth and determine which content resonates with readers. This will help you make better choices for what to write in the future. For example, if you write about insurance advice for small businesses and clients seem to love it, this means you’re serving a readership niche well. Keep writing for them, and turn them into loyal readers.
Run your small business smoothly with Practice
Practice is all about helping you streamline and organize your workflow. After all, we created a CRM tool to minimize administrative work so you can focus on what you do best –– business! Our Client Management Software, designed with small business owners in mind, helps you store client data, receive payments, and send contracts and files –– all in one place.
And to help you further, we have a vast library of materials for burgeoning businesses. Explore the Marketing and Sales section of The Practice Blog for tips on boosting your reach and growing. Learn about small business advertising, social media marketing, and Google Ads. Try Practice today.
