For me, becoming a Jan-San industry blog writer, writing for the professional cleaning industry, was a natural progression.
I have been writing for Jan-San industry trade publications for more than twenty years. The big difference is that articles in trade publications are about 1,200 words long, if not longer. Blogs, on the other hand, are typically about 650 words long.
However, there is a knack to it, and a lot depends on how the client wants their Jan-San industry blogs written. For instance, I had one client that wanted each blog to begin with a story. 
So-and-so was doing this or that and ran into a problem. They contacted a distributor asking for help, and the help came in the form of one of their products.
From there, it was just a matter of discussing the client’s products or services, but doing so in a subtle way. The secret to becoming an excellent Jan-San industry blog writer is to be promotional without the reader knowing it. Typically, this involves writing about a product or service without actually mentioning it. However, hyperlinks to the product or service are fine, just use them sparingly: one for every 200 words.
Many of my clients want their blogs to be educational. For this, a good Jan-San industry blog writer must take a different approach. It usually involves considerable research to look for worthy topics and then learn about those topics.
For instance, recently, for a supply chain organization in the Jan-San industry, we prepared a series of blogs regarding the difference between purchasing products, such as janitorial supplies, and procurement. This required considerable research because the two words do not mean the same, and many people use them interchangeably.
These blogs had to define what each of these terms mean, how they differ, and why procurement is a far more cost-effective option, something this Jan-San organization promoted. To give the blogs more “meat,” we even went into the history of the term procurement. Believe it or not, when referring to purchasing supplies, that word was not in the vernacular until the 1970s.
Another thing a good Jan-San industry blog writer must learn is how to write catchy titles. This can be more difficult than you realize. So many subjects in the professional cleaning industry have been discussed many times. It can be hard to put some zing into a title when talking about an old topic.
One way to handle this was to write blogs that had titles like this:
“Five Things You Need To Do To Be a Jan-San Industry Blog Writer”
“Here are the Six Steps to Being a Jan-San Industry Blog Writer”
This format worked perfectly for a long while, but not so much any more.
What I try to do is ask questions. For instance, the title of this blog is:
“How Do You Become a Jan-San Blog Writer?”
Questions like this can draw people in. Even if they do not read the entire blog, you’ve secured their interest. They will stop for a few seconds to see if they can get a gist of what is being discussed.
That’s the first goal of a quality Jan-San blog. The next goal is to get them to read the entire blog.
But there’s another good reason for using questions as titles. If someone is looking to learn how to become a Jan-San blog writer, that’s likely the exact question they will type into the search engine. This means asking questions can also help improve search engine optimization. When more people see your article, you have the potential for more readers.
By the way, there is one thing that a good Jan-San industry blog writer does not do, and we mentioned it earlier. As soon as a blog becomes an advertorial, it loses its impact. This has been proven in many studies. People read blogs to learn. The blogs build trust. With trust come sales.
As soon as you start mentioning products directly in the Jan-San industry blog, the reader realizes they are not getting an education, they are reading an advertisement. Best educate the reader first, then subtly direct them with creative writing to your products.
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