Although my business is All About Action, I counsel clients to be very methodical about laying out their business blogging strategy. Without proper planning, your business blog can cause problems. With proper planning, your blog can be a smashing success. Here are some things to consider.

What are you trying to accomplish with your blog? Stronger customer relationships? Better customer service? Technical support? Branding? Something else? You can have multiple objectives, but without a clear sense of purpose, your blog will never have the focus necessary to attract regular readers.

Who are you writing for? Customers? Peers? Both? Neither? Again, you can write for multiple audiences, but that can be tricky. For instance, blog conversation among peers can contain comments about customer types that are less than complimentary. More important, a clear sense of your audience makes it far easier to come up with relevant topics to write about.

What are you going to write about? This means more than just brainstorming specific topics. It’s imperative to have your categories well thought out. Otherwise, you’ll be tweaking them continually, confusing both readers and search engines.

How are you going to handle comments? The thought of negative comments gives some executives instant indigestion. You have to decide whether to adapt to the new world of conversational selling, tightly control what is said and how it is said, or land somewhere in the middle. There’s no right or wrong answer, but you must be comfortable with your policy and let readers know what it is.

Are you worried about the competition? One thing’s for sure - your competitors will be among your blog’s most devoted readers. What are the implications? How can you blog openly yet protect yourself in a competitive world? Many strategies can enable you to blog safely and successfully - otherwise there wouldn’t be any business blogs. I can’t offer any pat answers to these questions, because every situation is different. I can say that from what I’ve seen, business bloggers have experienced far more gain than pain.

What about legal issues? You have to be concerned about issues such as disclosure, liability, inadvertently divulging trade secrets, or inadvertently libeling an individual or company. Often, employee bloggers will need some coaching to know what they must, should, shouldn’t, and can’t say. Always consult with an attorney well versed in Internet law before blogging. The law is unsettled and varies from state to state. I recently found this excellent post from Aviva on U.S. laws every blogger should know. It will give you an idea of what to look out for.

Blogging presents challenges, just like any other business undertaking. But don’t let that scare you. It’s simply a matter of knowing what to look for, and thinking it through.

This post was inspired by the ProBlogger Birthday Bash!