It’s easy to start a blog. Not so easy to be successful. But what is success? Especially for a business blog?  Some of the measurable outcomes from business blogging include:
- Media attention
- Speaking requests
- Customer loyalty
- Inbound links to the blog
- Search engine ranking for the corporate site
- Corporate website traffic
- Leads/sales initiated
- Volume of blog traffic
- Technorati and other credible rankings
- Search engine ranking for the blog
- Increased company visibility within the industry
- Increased media coverage
- Improved customer loyalty
- Increased sales leads/revenue/new customers
And there are more depending on the purpose of the blog, whether it’s to create thought leadership, announce new products, offer SEO friendly content for a troublesome CMS or ecommerce platform, generate leads, support media relations initiatives or simply serve as a sounding board for ideas. The true measure of success for a business blog is entirely predicated on its purpose.
Once defined, implemented and measurements are put in place, any business can create a successful blog. It’s simply a matter of time, resources and a willingness to try until “what works” reveals itself.  Here’s a more detailed exploration of this idea as well as a long list of considerations that companies need to be aware of when starting a company blog. If you’re into checklists, then be sure to read Stephan’s “Essential Checklist for Starting a Blog“.
Hi,
It is easy to create a blog but hard to make it successful. With so many great blogs around, new bloggers will find it hard to get their blog noticed.
When starting a blog, you must know what your blog is all about (you will need to have a definite direction as to where your blog is heading).
Once you established the purpose of your blog, it is easy for you to join communities that share the theme as your blog.
Success will definitely comes next just be patient and you will enjoy what are listed above.
Comment by reash — October 10, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
It always amazes me that business bloggers measure their success in terms of the number of visitors they get, or subscribers to feeds. However, they frequently fail to measure things like leads, customer loyalty, media coverage and other outcomes of their blog. So your list is an excellent group of suggestions. After all, having a million readers would be great for the blogger’s ego – but if none of those readers did anything as a result of reading, so what. If your blog only had a hundred readers, though, and they all bought from your web site, that would be much better. Often, businesses measure the wrong things.
Comment by Graham Jones - Internet Psychologist — October 11, 2007 @ 2:05 am