I am of the (pretty popular) belief that a dormant blog (or social media account) is worse than not having one at all.

Why?

Because you have no control over how a potential customer comes into contact with your business, and seeing a part of your brand presence ignored and out of date gives off a very unfavorable impression of what it would be like buying from you.

If you find yourself at the point where you have an existing business blog but you haven’t published any new posts in quite a while, you can do one of 2 things:

• Delete your blog from your website
• Get back to publishing on it

If you only published 2 or 3 blog posts in total, deleting it may not be a bad option. But if you have some history there, deleting those links from your blog also deletes them from the almighty and powerful search engines…which could end up hurting your business in more ways than simply having an outdated marketing tool.

So let’s say you decide to keep your business blog and try to figure out how to publish blog posts more often. Where do you start?

Here are a few ideas.

7 Tips to Get You Back to Blogging

• Keep in mind the mantra of, “Slow and steady wins the race” Consistency is really what matters here. So don’t feel like now that you’ve rededicated yourself to your blogging, that you need to post multiple times a week. If all you can commit to is 1 new blog post a week – or even 1 new blog post every other week – that’s totally fine!
• Utilize your blog’s scheduling functionality You do not have to write and publish in real time. Write when you can…sometimes even a couple posts at once if you are in a good writing groove…and schedule them to publish at a future date.
• Write first, edit later One of the biggest writing roadblocks we help clients work through is writing at a pace that is much, much quicker than 8+ hours for a single 300-word blog post. Don’t get hung up on searching for the perfect word or worrying about grammar. Heck, don’t worry about an intro, conclusion, photos, or links either if that’s going to slow you down! Just follow your train of thought with your typing fingers, and go back later to edit and finalize.
• Consider sharing blog writing responsibilities If your company is more than just you, why not introduce another voice or two into the mix? You can even utilize a super cool author bio plugin like this one to showcase the “who” behind each post.
• Consider inviting others to guest post on your blog There are benefits to both parties when guest blogging takes place. So don’t be shy about putting the offer out there, or to directly ask other thought leaders in your industry to publish on your business blog.
• Consider other blog post types Truthfully, do you always want to read lengthy essays yourself? Or do list posts, photo-heavy articles, interviews, Q&As, and video blog posts also keep your interest and serve as a refreshing change of pace to your daily reading?
• Consider other blog post lengths Building off the last point…if you have a limited-time promotion happening but there’s not too much to say about it other than the offer itself, that’s OK! This blog represents your business. So sharing news about your business is totally OK as well as what people expect! So don’t let the number of words – or lack thereof – deter you for publishing.

So what do you think? Does this re-inspire you to jump back on the business blog bandwagon?