Was starting a business blog one of your New Year’s resolutions? If so, good for you! Blogging for a business is alive and well, despite what “they” (the-chasing-shiny-objects crowd) say.

While blogging for a business isn’t a must, it’s one of the best ways of getting your marketing messages and hard-earned expertise online — and it keeps your site fresh and relevant, compared to other pages on your site that grow stale or (said better) remain evergreen.

Whether writing comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle, one way to ease your stress is to follow a formula or template, of sorts, that makes it easier to write a blog article.

Here are four post styles with suggestions on how you can use these to create interesting content for your business blog.

Instructional Blog Post

If you’re a consultant or a long-time veteran in your field, I bet it’s easy and natural for you to get into full-on instruction mode. You find yourself regularly advising customers and clients (and also, family and friends!) on how to do [fill in your favorite topic here]. Given your inclination, you should be a natural for writing an instructional or how-to post.

Here’s an outline to follow as you prepare to write an instructional blog post — just answer these questions and build out the content from there:

• • What’s the desired outcome for the reader of your blog post?
  • What are the benefits she/he could discover by taking your advice?
  • What are the action steps the reader needs to know to reach the desired outcome?
  • What are some common pitfalls to avoid and why?
  • What are the final thoughts you can share to recap key steps and benefits, in order to give the reader a final nudge toward action?

Inspirational Blog Post

Reading through social media posts or catching the latest news headlines can sometimes be a downer. Be a source of encouragement to your blog readers via an upbeat post that’s motivational, entertaining and encouraging or inspires action.

You could tell readers about a client or partner success story (of course, don’t share the person’s name without express permission) — or write something more personal about how you made a change in your business or work life that proved to be beneficial.

Your inspirational article outline could include the:

• • Particular challenge or situation you/the featured person faced
  • Opportunities and rewards for overcoming the challenges
  • His/her/your journey (with both successes and stumbles) along the way
  • Happy ending when the accomplishment was realized

You can be a content queen or king if you follow my tips for four types of blog posts — instructional, inspirational, informative and insightful.

Informative Blog Post

Do you love to stay abreast of news in your industry? Or maybe you’re the person people go to when it comes to knowing what’s happening in your local business community. Share your insider’s knowledge with blog readers by informing and enlightening them on a particular topic you’re tuned into.

Here’s how to craft an informative blog post that’s connected to something newsy:

• • Share a summary of the news by sourcing, quoting and/or linking to the information if you’re referencing another website.
  • Offer perspectives on what this news means — to your readers, your business, customers, industry, etc.
  • Provide readers with related facts that complement or even, when appropriate, contradict the news.
  • Draw conclusions about the news by sharing your expertise/experience.

Insightful Blog Post

Perhaps the easiest post of the four to write is sharing a new revelation or long-held philosophy — something where you show your personality. For example, yesterday I was reminded that just 20 minutes of walking outside puts me in a happier place than sitting on the couch (where I often work, even though I have a home office!) reading about the day’s dramas that are happening in our government.

Using this experience, I could write an insightful article about:

• • How I felt at the time and what my options were (to keep reading or close the computer and go outside).
  • How I coached myself into a better behavior and how a reader could do the same (I reminded myself I need to do more walking and how I like meeting more of my neighbors!).
  • What I’ll take away from what I learned — for example, I should put a limit on how much political news I digest and that I like to see my Fitbit go past 7k steps each day.

Following a format is one way to make content creation easier … so which post style will you work on today?

Photo: Hey Beauti Magazine via Unsplash