I have my hands up. High up. My last post about the importance of frequent blog posts was six months ago. My head is down in shame. In my defence I have been extremely busy with client work (which always comes first), pregnant and now have a terrible two year old.

Nevertheless, in the week I finish to start maternity leave I am bringing you another six blog post ideas to complete the twelve month business blog post calendar. Hopefully my year planner will help you keep on top of your content much better than I have done recently, and if you missed my outline for March to August, you’ll find the post ideas for small businesses here.

September – How to Tips and Tricks

An oldy but a goody, this is a simple idea that helps your audience undertake something that you have the expertise in. I plan to write (no, I do honestly) a post about what to think about when taking or sourcing images for specific marketing applications, for example a roller banner, a website or a brochure. This is something that I have recently encountered in some web development and design work and it’s difficult to achieve the result you want if you don’t have suitable pictures. Your first thought may be that you don’t want to give away your USP or help a potential customer to do it themselves, therefore not employing you. However, having such a blog post could make the customer become aware of your business in the first place if it’s found via search or social media and displaying your aptitude may make them contact you now or in the future.

October – Christmas Gift Round Up

If you sell products or services that are suitable to purchase as Christmas gifts this is a no brainer of a topic. Early October is the time print media are putting together their final articles for December issues and when online publications are starting to plan content to run up towards the holiday period, therefore any posts of this nature can potentially double up as media relations content. Predict your best sellers, highlight trends, showcase the most quirky gifts or advise what is suitable for different personalities or members of the family from your range. If you don’t sell gift products there is still a lot of scope. Research what presents someone in your industry would like to receive and list the best, or worst, on the market.

November – Technology in the Spotlight

Whatever your business I would guess technology features somewhere in your day. A car mechanic uses hydraulic tools, a timber frame house designer works with specialist software, a vet surgery has a customer database and an SEO expert uses online data tools. Whatever may seem mundane or necessary to your job, it’s likely to give your customers or clients an insight into your world and this brings with it the opportunity for you to build better relationships.

December – Standout Moments of Your Year

From unusual or outstanding jobs completed to new staff members, from industry developments to major news stories that have affected your business, there will be at least three things that stand out in the past year. Not only can you use this information in an informative blog post, but you may also be able to utilise it in your sales pitches to showcase your company and its ability to react to the landscapes it resides in. Of course, you could always just post some silly pictures of staff in their best Christmas outfits too.

January – Industry Trends or Predictions for your own Business for the Year Ahead

Look towards your trade press for inspiration if you’re not sure where to start and something should jump out at you that you think “I can expand on that”. However, most companies will have (or should) a good idea of what developments are afoot. It could be a shift that has already started to happen and you can hypothesise about which direction things might go, or you might have the confidence to write about what you would like to see happen over the coming year. With regards to your company, are you planning on releasing new products or expanding into new markets? Let your readers know early what they can expect from the business and why not ask them to register their interest too? There’s no harm in gathering some email addresses to do some direct marketing aroud a specific event.

February – Introducing Interview

This could be an interview with your MD encompassing why he started the business and his passion for the industry, or it could be with a junior member of staff about their aspirations, educational training you are helping them achieve and their perspective on the industry you are in. Between eight and twelve is a good number of questions to answer and ideas can be had from a wide number of sources in magazines, newspapers and online publications if you’re not sure where to start. The answers may need to be tidied up and formed into more bitesize chunks, especially if the interview isn’t originally undertaken as a paper exercise, but the questions can be used again. Such a blog post series can then be linked to from your About Us or Meet the Team webpage.

Don’t forget to –

Optimise for search – ensure the terms that people are searching for are used appropriately in the text and other key elements, like the meta description

Socially share – use the content to drive traffic to your site from the platforms you use

Distribute to the media – use the content or parts of the content to engage with the media and bloggers, and get links back to your site

Should you need help creating blog content, contact us for advice and a price.