Small business blogging is catching on. Historically, I was the one approaching small businesses to explain why they needed a blog (and then backing up to explain “blogging“) and how I can bring measurable value to a small business with said blog and killer content. But times, they are a-changing. Now I’m the one being approached about blogging – am I available? And what do I charge? And can we start now?

Depending on who’s asking, the answers are yes, let’s work it out, and sure thing. I’ve worked out a sweet blogging deal for a handful of companies – happy to tell you more about it – and the results will be even sweeter. The general rule for seeing results from consistent blogging is about six months, but I’m happy to report accelerated results in many instances.

And here’s a recent example

We began promoting a January 2015 fitness challenge at Freestyle Fitness in early December of the previous year. Our marketing efforts were limited to blogging, social media, a handful of posters hung on site and in the neighborhood haunts, and word of mouth. Typically, these challenges net between eight and twelve participants, unless they used something like Living Social or Groupon, when the turnout was around twenty-five.

For this challenge, I wrote five keyword-rich blog posts outlining and hyping the event in varied ways. The angle changed from Q&A style to a pros and cons approach, with calls to action linking to a dedicated landing page I created where people could sign up on the spot or request more info. We shared these posts all over Facebook, and by January 3 – day one of the challenge,  we had fifty-one registered participants.

We were able to accomplish a lot with those posts.

  • First, I was careful to create a sense of urgency so that people felt motivated to sign up.
  • Second, we shared a lot of information in a few different ways to appeal to the widest possible audience.
  • Third, we answered a lot of questions without making anyone contact us directly until they were ready to sign up.

Taken as a whole, this mini blogging campaign was an effective way of whipping up excitement about something, directing everyone to a specific spot and then asking them to do something for us. In this case, it was contacting us via phone or through our form to sign up or find out more info.

All in all, it was a very successful little promo with spectacular results. Blogging is hands-down a wildly effective method of communication for a number of different messages. More and more, small business owners are noting their absence from the first page of Google – and the presence of their competition. The best way to change that? I’ll give you one guess.