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Write your company’s history
Often, someone arriving at your homepage will click on the ‘History of Company’ link because they want to gain a flavor of what your business is all about.
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This is your opportunity to put the corporate voice on mute and tell your story in a personable way.
Let us see your passion
As with most stories, starting at the beginning is best. Tell us why you started the business. What did you want to create? It doesn’t matter if you set up a cookery school, sell second-hand cars, or make wedding favors from home — you are passionate about what you do — so let us see that.
Describing the birth of your business can be
inspirational, especially if you had to take substantial risks. When did the “Eureka!” moment hit you? Were you standing in your kitchen, or on the daily commute, or did someone inspire you to start a business of your own? Tell us about it.
Identify important keywords
Keep your keywords in mind for when you are writing this article for your website. Having them to hand will
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help focus your writing and show your readers what your business is all about.
An informal tone often works best
Writing a history allows you to state your core values. This is your opportunity to build an identity. Ensure your tone is relaxed and conversational. The fact that people have selected to read your ‘History ’ page means that they are interested in knowing more about you.
You could be informal and write something like “Hi, my name is John Doe and welcome to my site, www. johndoe.com. For nearly 20 years I worked as a head chef in some of New York’s top restaurants and hotels. I decided to start my own cookery school in 2001 when blah blah blah happened…”
Amber Jewelry
Here are a couple of examples. Amber Jewelry has a personal story on why its owner was attracted to the jewelry business, and amber in particular. It gives an account of the owner ’s journey in a way that is engaging and interesting for its customers.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 6 | Write your company ’s history
Hot Tip
The story is king. When writing your company’s history, emphasize the narrative. Personalize the story when you can and remember: the journey can be more interesting than the arrival.
Amber Jewelry’s About Us page.
It makes great use of links to expert articles, as well as links that go deeper into the Amber site. It includes photographs and examples of the company ’s jewelry, which make it clear to visitors what kinds of products the business sells.
Innocent Drinks
Another example of how businesses can use a story to good effect comes from Innocent Drinks . The article aims to reflect the nature of the company, which claims to put truth and openness in its products.
The company matches the tone to its brand message — fun, quirky and honest. It never becomes corporate. Instead, the article provides a link to an interview, on the BBC’s HardTalk show, given by the company ’s co-founder, Richard Reed.
The page also includes an email address for people wanting to know more about how the founders started the company, which suggests that they are open and accessible to their customers.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 6 | Write your company ’s history
Content ideas
Key points you may wish to make in your opening paragraph are:
• When the company was established?
• The number of employees you have?
• Where in the world your company is based?
• Which industries your serve?
• What makes you different from your competitors?
What do you do if your company has been around for many years? You may have inherited your business and this is the first time you have branched out onto the web. One way to tackle this is to break the history down into decades, allowing people to see how your business has grown and developed over time.
Show that you make a difference
Use the history to reflect on how you have contributed to your clients’ success. Show that you are an authority on your industry and illustrate the presence you have. List your best clients and show how you developed long-term relationships with them. This information will be useful for journalists and for those who want to research your company.
By writing a history of your company, you are building trust. Post photos of the real people that work with you, so visitors can put a face to a name. Make sure the history is up-to-date and finish your article by including links to other areas of your site.
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Start a debate
Courting controversy and conflict can be a great way of attracting attention. Publishing an article that starts a debate is likely to generate traffic, comments and links.
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Start with some research
Contributing to an industry debate isn’t difficult, but if you want to come across as thoughtful and lucid, start with some research.
Every debate has at least two sides, so you should do some digging to find out what the main arguments are. Arm yourself with as much information as you can. The best way to do this is to set up Google Alerts with keywords that relate to your industry. This means that all articles containing those keywords will be emailed to you, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You can also sign up to NewsGator , a news aggregator that delivers really simple syndication (RSS) feeds. Keeping abreast of industry news will put you in an informed position, one that will enable you to illuminate an argument.
Before you write an article, you should be asking
yourself : where does the friction lie? By teasing out the points of conflict, you will have a better understanding of the debate and be more likely to write a really interesting article.
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Choose your topic carefully
If you’re in business, you won’t want to offend your customer base. So, choose your topic carefully. You might want to write about:
• Incoming legislation that affects your industry
• New software or a cool gadget. You could gather differing opinions on whether it’s any better than its competitors or predecessors.
• A recent piece of research
• A hot topic, such as climate change, which is likely to place new demands on your business.
You may want to look at more general debates, such as whether it’s beneficial for companies to have employees work from home.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 7 | Start a debate
TechCrunch
Hot Tip
Talking to yourself is said to be the first sign of madness. But it can be helpful to
say your thoughts out loud. It’s amazing how a sentence you have been laboring over suddenly starts to flow once you talk it through.
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TechCrunch is a group-edited blog that focuses on technology. In July 2009, MG Siegler ’s article compared Apple Mac computers with PCs. Siegler published it in response to Apple’s quarterly results. The author ’s writing style is authoritative but accessible. And the piece is well-researched — the author makes comparisons between the computer market and the car industry. By August 2009, the article had generated more than 360 comments and been Tweeted 589 times.
New York Times – room for debate
Newspaper columnists provide some of the best examples of the use of topical news stories to generate debates. The New York Times has a section on its website called ‘ Room For Debate ’. Writers post articles on a wide range of issues, such as:
• How air travel can be made less annoying
• Do women make better bosses?
• What do school tests measure?
• Are deer the culprit in Lyme disease?
As you can see, most of the articles are headlined as questions. This suggests to readers that the author is starting a discussion.
Create a plan
Publishing an unjustified rant will probably damage your reputation. So, plan a clear, methodical structure. Your readers are more likely to respect you if you can show that you’ve considered the arguments carefully. Exploring the debate thoroughly means being fair to both sides:
• Begin with a paragraph on why you have chosen to tackle the subject.
• The simplest way to structure your contribution is to outline two sides to the argument. Make a list of bullet points — as many as you can — so that you
fully understand the merits of each view. You can edit them down later.
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