Having a blog can be a tremendous asset to your business, providing valuable information to homeowners and contractors alike. It will also help you connect with other people that are currently not in your current network. Blogs make it easy for contractors to update customers, prospects, and others about their industry. Here are 5 rules for contractors to follow when writing a blog:

1. Don’t only push your services
It’s good to occasionally mention work that you do and have done in the past, but make sure it’s not your main focus. One good way to integrate your own services is to show brief examples of work you have completed that are relevant to the key topic of a given blog post. This can be both informative using visual aides and also good promo for your own work. But only talking about yourself is an easy way to turn people off.

2. Provide value
You’re an expert in your field. Use your skills to write about all the latest trends in your industry; what people are doing, new materials being developed, health and safety concerns, interesting design applications, etc. You might consider writing a blog post about a new product or application process and then follow it up with additional posts about how you are experimenting with it. Photos and video of the process will go a long way.

3. Stay consistent
The more frequent you blog the easier it will help search engines to find you. I wouldn’t recommend starting a daily blog unless you feel you have the time for that. Aim for one blog post a week. This will ensure you have enough time to create good content that has been finely edited. Followers of your blog will also appreciate your consistent schedule. A decent blog post will stay within 200-600 words. That ensures a substantial message but not one that will require too much time commitment to read or write.

4. Use multiple forms of media
If a picture is worth a thousand words a video must be worth ten thousand words. Try including photos and video in your blog posts pertaining to the topic. Not only will readers better understand the intricacies of your trade, but also search engines love video content. It will help juice your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking your website better from organic search engine results. Photos and video are your friends and when used well can provide higher traffic to your site while establishing trade credibility. Check out our previous post on photographing your work here.

5. Network with other bloggers
A great way to further establish your trade professionalism and online credibility is by become a guest blogger on other websites. This will allow you to reach a completely new audience from sites that may have larger traffic volume than your own personal site. You will find that as you become a regular contributor to other website blogs, communicating with the owners of those sites and their followers will open channels of networking that will only give you better insight into your line-of-work while new information that may be beneficial to your business will start presenting itself to you.

Do you already have a blog? Share the link in the comments below.

(Flickr photo by Dave Dugdale )