(This article was originally posted in Boost.re’s official blog)

Starting a blog for your company? There is something you need to know.

You set up a blog because you know it can drive sales. Now what?

After reading all the advice on how to create/migrate-to an online business, you decided you needed a blog for your company.

Therefore:

You’re ready to rumble and… oh wait! One small detail, to drive sales, you need quality traffic, how are you going to do that if you only have only 2000 fans on Facebook and around 500 followers on Twitter?

A business blog is an investment, it costs money and time, and you should expect a ROI from it.

Creating a business blog means creating a new channel of acquisition. And as any other channel, it needs proper marketing tools and KPIs.

Remember, a business blog is great when it is about delivering information to help people feel/become better at something they care about.

First of all, avoid the SEO trap

You probably didn’t discover this article through any Search Engine. Nevertheless, you’re here, reading it, and (I hope) finding it useful.

SEO is easy to sell as a concept, it is based on the motto: “if you build it, they will come.” So you just have to create your content, sit back and relax, right?

The SEO trap: always having to please Google’s whims

From my personal experience, if you’re just starting a business blog, you SHOULD forget about SEO.

If you are creating it in order to have organic traffic from Google, you’re probably wasting your time (unless you have deep pockets and spare time).

A lot of big companies, with established domains, are spending big bucks to be the top search results.

Competing with them, even if possible, will take a lot of your precious time and money.

At the beginning, it is better to focus on your sales by driving quality traffic to your website/blog by other means, the SEO will take care of itself.

If you fall for the SEO trap, you will find yourself:

trying to please Google’s whims,

obliged to create content consistently, sometimes several posts per day, crafted for robots -not for humans-,

desperately looking for backlinks from other websites.

Did you notice that it has nothing to do with sales?

Wouldn’t it be awesome instead if:

you could just create the right content for your audience,

you can create it at your own pace,

you are not pressured by time or frequency,

yet you always receive quality traffic each time you hit the “publish” button?

Well, it IS possible thanks to services like Boost.

Solve the creation/distribution dilemma

It might seem intuitive, but when you’re starting a business blog, you won’t be able to do everything by yourself: finding leads, creating content, distributing it...

The magic happens when you learn to outsource what you can actually outsource.

Thus, you will have to make some decisions on what makes more sense for your company.

Explore the interwebs to find distribution channels

If you decide to do your own content distribution, you’ll need to know how the Internet works nowadays.

There are thousands of websites in which you can advertise your company’s blog. The real secret is to know where and how to do it effectively.

You will probably want to stick to what you know, it is normal, and sometimes it will get you good results.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, are great source of visitors for your content. But, because they’re well-known, they are also plagued with spammers and competition.

This means that getting your message out there will take a lot of effort, finding techniques no one has tried before.

Despite the fun of creativity, it will take a lot of your daily time to constantly come up with different techniques.

To be a successful digital entrepreneur, you will have to get out of your comfort zone and try new platforms, new ways of communicating with your audience.

Out there, there are some great underutilized platforms that can bring a lot of value, not only to your company, but to your own personal development.

This list gives a fair picture of the best platforms available to distribute your content.

You can also look for “specialized” forums that have an engaged audience.