If you are a business considering blogging, this blog about business blogs is for you. Try saying that five times fast! Understanding the benefits of a blog for your business can help you determine how it can be used to support your current and future marketing efforts, and why it should be a part of your digital plans. Blogs present an opportunity for every brand to share their insightful information, reach additional audiences, support inbound marketing tactics and so much more. At the same time, they require a commitment of time and resources to keep them fresh and aligned with the rest of your marketing strategies. Read on to understand the basics of business blogging as well as blogging best practices.
Share Your Expertise
Creating a blog for your business allows you to share your insider knowledge and industry expertise with the world. Successful business blogs address common questions that your potential and current customers may have. By writing blog posts on common questions or hot topics in your industry, you are establishing an image of legitimacy for your business. Professional blog content can position you as a thought leader in your marketplace.
Blogs Generate More Traffic
You likely know how important search engine optimization is for attracting organic search traffic. Blogging also serves as a way to drive traffic to your site. The more blog posts you write about topics related to your business, the more credible your site becomes in the eyes of search engines and your audience. And, by blogging regularly, your site will have a continuous supply of fresh, relevant content – which search engines thrive on.
Blogs Support Social Media Efforts
Blogging also works hand in hand with social media. You can share your blog posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more to extend their reach. Blog posts can also be repositioned and shared on social channels when your content is at a stand-still. This way, you are never missing an opportunity to provide value and attract new visitors.
Blogging Supports Lead Generation
Blogging creates more opportunities to convert site visitors into to qualified leads. Whatever your conversion goal may be, creating subtle links to your products and services within blog copy, and putting a call to action in the page will help guide a visitor into action, which may ultimately result in a lead. Blog posts serve as tremendous triggers for inbound marketing, leading your consumer down the online sales funnel.
Blogging Best Practices
- Appeal to your consumers. Focus on your target market’s needs, questions and interests to create compelling topics that will appeal to them. Blogging is a way to show your customers that you understand them and can offer solutions.
- Keep it simple. The content in your blog should be original, helpful and easy to read. Leave the technical hoop-la for your co-workers. Your readers want a digestible article that lets them know your business is relatable.
- Vary the content. Don’t focus specifically on your business. This feels disingenuous and like a sales pitch. It is also nice once in a while to take a break from writing about your industry altogether. Posting about an upcoming holiday or a seasonal topic is a great way to mix it up. Tying in a call to action about a relevant product, service, or timely promotion would still keep a blog post like this valuable.
- Write for search. Do your keyword research to see what people are searching for and craft your blog titles and copy with those search trends in mind.
- Format your blog posts properly. Always have a keyword-rich blog title (H1), and ensure that the URL aligns with those keywords. It is also helpful to link content to other pages in your site where relevant to support your ongoing search engine optimization and lead generation goals.
- Optimize for SEO. Make sure each blog post has a unique title tag and meta description optimized against relevant, searched-for keywords. Align these tags with your blog content as well so your blog’s credibility ranking increases.
- Link to other pages. Always include a call to action that links to a trackable form or relevant product/service page. Avoid the words “click here” and instead make your link names more actionable to appeal to those who are scanning.
- Promote your blogs Cross-pollinate your blog through social media, email and syndication to reach a larger audience.
- Blog consistently. It is ideal to create two blog posts a week to keep content fresh, so both search engines and potential customers will recognize your site as relevant. Planning ahead to determine articles with a content calendar is most helpful, allowing for topical blog posts as timely stories present themselves to you.
- Measure and adjust accordingly. Check analytics to see which blogs are most popular with your audiences, and let these trends influence your content calendar.
- Recycle your blogs into whitepapers. Turn blog articles into valuable whitepapers that are only accessible as gated content. Requiring your audience to enter an email address and other information will allow you to better track downloads and leads and continue to nurture those leads through your sales funnel.
Long-Term Benefits
When done properly, business blogging creates long-term value for your business. Blogs are a key component to a digital strategy, serving as a consistent tactic for content marketing. Every blog post you create serves as an opportunity for your business to increase its perceived credibility, generate a lead and keep existing customers educated and happy.