Everywhere you look, experts are recommending that small business owners blog to increase exposure and build their corporate brand. However, a blog can be a huge liability instead of an asset if you don’t handle it in the right manner. Here are the five most common and most devastating mistakes that small business bloggers make.

Business Blogging Mistakes

1. Getting too personal. If you want a personal blog, create one—but don’t make your small business blog do double duty. Occasional tidbits about your personal life are fine if they are relevant to the topic at hand; in fact, they can increase interest and build reader loyalty if handled correctly. However, your blog should be full of relevant information related to your business and industry. In addition, avoid being excessively controversial or offensive. Many small business bloggers have lost their audience after one ill-thought-out post.
2. Using a separate domain. There are so many advantages to hosting your blog on your small business website that I am constantly amazed at the success of Blogspot and other popular blogging domains. When you post on an outside website, you are forgoing the main benefits of blogging: keyword-rich content, internal links, and branding power. It is very easy to add and to maintain a blog on your website, so talk to a business website designer today if you haven’t already taken this step.
3. Not achieving the right balance. We see this all the time: small business owners either become dedicated bloggers who ignore the other aspects of their company, or put off posting to the point that their site feels like a graveyard. Blogging should supplement your small business, but never interfere with it. If you are spending the majority of your time blogging, you have not reached the right level of balance. If, on the other hand, you blog only sporadically, you are unbalanced at the other end of the spectrum. Set a blogging schedule that makes sense for your business and stick to it—no more, no less.
4. Diluting your keywords. One of the main benefits of a blog is that it can add keyword rich content to your website on a regular basis while also building your small business brand. However, a blog can dilute your keywords and your link profile by adding links and content that are not related to your business in any way—like your name. There is no magic button to fix this, but have a plan for increasing links and keywords relevant to your small business as the less helpful ones grow. A qualified and professional web designer can help you develop the right strategies for your small business.
5. Using your blog as your homepage. Unless your business is blogging, your blog should be a button on your navigation bar—a side show instead of the main attraction. Your home page should be developed to attract relevant hits and turn visitors into conversions, not to share your opinions and advice. It’s tempting to put your blog front and center, as it is often the most recently updated and best-written portion of a website. However, this will be counterproductive because it will usually decrease conversions by distracting would-be customers.

Every small business needs a marketing plan, but this is often easier said than done. It is difficult to decide on a single plan and even more difficult to put these plans into writing. Here are the different steps of writing a marketing plan.

• Compile your information. Before you write your marketing plan, you should be aware of your company’s financial situation at that moment and how your sales are trending. You also need to know every product or service currently being offered. An overview of similar companies with similar services in your area can also help because it will help you figure out what differentiates your business. Many business owners find that an organization table helps, as it will aid you in assigning different marketing tasks to different people. Last, you will need to know who your target customer is and why they are choosing you.
• Part One: Market Situation. This is the first section of many marketing plans. You will need to describe the state of your industry in your area and how you fit into the big picture. Here is where you describe your customer in more detail and give firm numbers as to your geographic area, sales structure, and the success of different product lines.
• Part Two: Opportunities and Threats. In many ways this is a continuation of the market situation section, but it focuses specifically on what your business has going for it… and against it.  What market trends are affecting your business right now, and how will these change in the near future? Is success in the current market possible, or will you need to modify your approach in order to succeed? This is the part of your marketing plan where you get real, and look critically at your chances of success.
• Part Three: Marketing Objectives. These are concrete, easily trackable goals that you want to achieve within your company. This is the place to think hard about how you want for your business to be in a year, two years, and so on. You will need to break each goal into smaller tasks, place these on a rough time frame, and then assign responsibility for them to a specific person. For instance, if you want to set up a Facebook site that brings in so many customers per month, you will need to include information about who will be responsible for this task and how they will accomplish it. Your goals are basically a realistic dream of where you would like to be in a reasonable but challenging time frame, but they include the how and who information as well.

Once you have a draft of a marketing plan, your next step is to have other people critique it. This could include employees and fellow business owners. Get feedback, consider it carefully, and change your plan if necessary. Because your market is changing from day to day, your marketing plan will also need to change in order to be successful.

The simple answer: Because customers love them.

Nothing more important than that, right? Of course, I would not expect you to take my word just like that. So, here’s the explanation. It’s all about word-of-mouth marketing. What’s the first you thing you do before buying anything which you do not have much knowledge about? Get recommendation from your network of family and friends.

Now, translate that to the online world. According to the information gathered by Future Now (this is a really cool site by the way), about 70% of customers check more than 4 reviews before buying anything. More than half of them spend more than 10 minutes to read these reviews. Because reviews are honest opinion from recent buyers, their insights do matter to shoppers looking for the best product in town.

That’s why you should not tweak product reviews just to favor your products. Aside from being unethical, it destroys the trust between customers and sellers. Be brutally honest all the time.

Product Review Prototype

Luckily, big e-tailers have spent money and time testing different Product Review models that will help improve sales and build credibility. Of course, Amazon.com is one of the best in this field. Do not just copy the whole template but adjust it according to your needs.

Circuit City is one good example for product reviews. It is multi-dimensional, meaning it evaluates and sums up the key attributes common to a group of products. In this case, the item is Toshiba Satellite Laptop. Using different measures like battery life, performance, and display, it gives interested buyers a glimpse of the strong and weak points of the product.

For more details on how to optimize your Product Review section, visit Future Now.

This is a simple roundup of blog carnivals that articles from this blog have been accepted into recently. We just started last week so expect to see more of our posts in different blog carnivals soon.

1. Carnival of Sales & Management Success March 1, 2008 Edition published Still Stuck on Hard Selling?
2. Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship #10 published Why Entrepreneurs Should Aim for the Heart, Not the Head.

Among multitude of insights from these carnivals, these are some of the highly recommended posts:

Silicon Valley Blogger’s Top 20 Dumbest Business Ideas That Made Millions…Or Not! posted at The Digerati Life. This goes to show that some ideas, no matter how absurd, survive and even grow in this hypercompetitive business world with sheer luck combined with brain cells.

Ralph Jean-Paul’s Bounce Back After Failure posted at Potential 2 Success. It provides a comprehensive insight about the 2 types of failures as well as the different coping mechanisms. True enough, we usually tend to “overanalyze our setbacks to the point of making them larger than life.”

Alex Schoenfeldt’s 8 Signs Your Prospect Wants to BUY! posted at Advice Network Founders Blog. Short and simple, exactly what the online world needs.

If you do start using blog carnivals to promote your blog, also see 10 Tips for Managing Your Blog Carnival Submissions at Logo Design Works blog.

What’s the common advice you will hear if you want to win in politics, war or sports like basketball or martial arts? Aim for the heart. However, this notion comes in different flavors. But that’s the essence. In the words of Blaise Pascal, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.”

In war or any competitive sports, famous military strategists like Sun Tzu emphasize the need to break the morale of the enemy to ensure victory. Take away the spirit of a team and they will definitely lose. Aim for the heart, my friends.

On the other hand, this concept is more apparent in the ongoing US Presidential campaigns, particularly Obama’s passionate and catchy “Yes We Can” slogan. In fact, some even tout him as the next Nike of politics. Why? Because he appeals more to our emotions, not reasons. Aim for the heart, my friends.

There’s even an old experiment conducted in 1935 to study the contrast between emotional and rational appeal in political persuasion. Judging from my line of thinking, the result is quite obvious – emotions influence people.

The same is true for entrepreneurs, experienced or startups. It’s disappointing that some are still solely pitching about affordability and limiting market segmentation in terms of demographics. To make matters worse, some do not bother finding out the real sales drivers – the needs and motivations of the target customers. So, the next time you craft your message try to add more emotional hooks.

Choosing the right color or color combinations for your small business as well as brand is very crucial. You may find it hard to believe but there are several studies proving the psychological and emotional impact of colors. Sad to say, many entrepreneurs still overlook this seemingly trivial angle.

Because colors can affect our moods, it is important to learn how to combine these colors effectively in your logo design, brochures, Website, uniforms and other marketing materials. More importantly, you have to adjust it according to your target market, competitors and to the nature of your business.

Colors and its meanings vary according culture, location, gender or race. According to SBInformation, these are the corresponding meanings of the following colors in the context of American culture:

White: Pure. Clean. Youthful
Black: Power. Elegant. Secretive
Red: Passion. Excitement. Danger.
Orange: Vibrant. Energy. Play.
Yellow: Happy. Warm. Alert.
Green: Natural. Healthy. Plentiful.
Purple: Royalty. Wise. Celebration.
Blue: Loyal. Peaceful. Trustworthy.

Other helpful links about colors and small business:

Color Your Call To Action
The Effect of Colors on Business and Marketing
How to Energize Your Marketing With Colors
Your Brand’s True Colors