Blogging is an essential part of any business's digital strategy and has been around since the early 2000s, but now it's more popular than ever! Blogging allows your company to have a voice in the marketplace and build credibility with your target audience. Blog posts can also be used as a lead magnet or content upgrade to capture email addresses from potential customers who are interested in your products and services. In this post, we'll walk you through how you can set up an effective blogging strategy for your business!
According to Fundera, 55% of marketers say that blogging is the top inbound marketing priority for their business. This is no surprise when you continue reading and see that businesses who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI than those that do not and they generate 67% more leads. The numbers don't lie - if you are not prioritizing blogging in your business's content strategy maybe it is time to reassess.
Now that you understand the need to create your blog and let's outline the plan for you to be successful with your blog marketing strategy! In this article we will discuss:
- Identify your blog theme & goals
- Decide what types of content will live on your blog
- Develop blogging & content schedules
- Write compelling and valuable content
- Create blog posts that promote conversions
- Measure, analyze, and adapt
Identifying Your Blog Theme & Goals
The first step in creating your blogging strategy is to clearly define your blog's theme and goal. Your topic should be broad enough to allow you to write hundreds of pieces on it while also being specific enough to relate to your company's specialty and specialist(s). Consider the following questions while brainstorming for a blog's purpose: "Why does this blog exist?".
You should be able to respond to that question with a single, clear statement. (Document your blog's goals so you can refer to them as your business grows and evolves.) Take some time to consider the following questions if you need assistance determining your blog's topic:
- What information is your audience interested in?
- What problems does your audience need help with?
Having a clear understanding of your marketing goals before you begin developing a blog content plan will assist you in making the best decisions for broad campaigns and individual blog articles.
Consider these as possible goals for blog content:
- Driving more traffic to your site
- Increase number of qualified leads
- Updating customers about business developments and product releases
- Informing prospective customers about your product offerings and services
- Telling your brand story
A blog can accomplish one or all of those tasks, and it's critical to have a strategy in place from the start. Your content objectives will also inform what metrics you should be tracking and prioritizing - more on this later.
Decide What Types of Content Will Live on Your Blog
Obviously, you'll want to put blog entries on your blog page, but what about other sorts of material? Many businesses use their blogs as a catch-all content reservoir, combining news articles with case studies, consumer testimonies, press releases, and other postings. This method isn't always beneficial since visitors must go through additional steps to discover the information they want.
A better option is to determine which forms of content will be most useful for your audience and then create a section on the blog dedicated to those topics. For example, if your business's blog is focused on products and services related to home appliances you may want a "Knowledge Center" with helpful information like how-to guides for using specific tools or instructions on maintaining particular types of equipment.
Deciding the proper content categories will not only help visitors find what they're looking for more efficiently but can also make your business appear as a more credible source of information. Blogs that are seen as definitive places for authoritative content are less likely to be ignored or overlooked by search engines and consumers alike.
Develop Your Blog Content Schedule
Your business doesn't exist in a vacuum, so you shouldn't expect to publish blog posts whenever the mood strikes; there's more involved than just sitting down and writing about whatever comes to mind at that moment. Developing an editorial calendar will help you stay organized and on-task. Blog posts that are created in a haphazard fashion will lack focus, which can cause them to be overlooked by your readers (and search engines).
An editorial calendar should include:
- Types of content you'll publish
- Headlines for upcoming blog articles
- A schedule for when each piece of content will go live
- Keywords that this blog post should optimize for or target
Publishing even a few times per month is enough to establish your company as a reliable resource for knowledge and information, but don't overwhelm visitors with too much content or create so many posts that it's hard to keep up with everything being published. Blogging should be about quality, not quantity. Blogging frequency and length should be determined by the type of content being published; for example:
- Longer 1200+ word articles with more information may need to be posted once every two weeks.
- Shorter 300-word blog posts that are focused on providing quick tips or industry news can be shared as often as daily.
Write Compelling & Valuable Content
Writing compelling blog posts is the first step in creating an effective, long-term blogging strategy for your company. Blog posts should be about 600 words long and always include:
- Headline (under 60 characters) - written to catch your reader's attention
- Introduction paragraph that clearly introduces the topic of the article.
It's also important to remember that your blog is not just a place for you to tout what your business does - it should be an area in which customers can learn something new or gain the knowledge they weren't aware of before visiting the page. Regularly creating and promoting valuable content will help establish blogging as one of the most effective and cost-effective marketing methods for your company.
Create Blog Posts That Promote Conversions For Your Busines
There are many different ways to create blog posts, but remember that each one should be about something your business knows well. Blogging isn't just a chance for you to share information or promote what your business does, it can also be an effective way to improve website SEO and drive more traffic through search engines. For more on keyword research - see our blog here.
Measure, Analyze and Adapt
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make when creating a blog strategy is failing to measure, analyze and adapt. You can't expect your first attempt at blogging to be perfect; just like any other type of marketing efforts, every single post you publish will require tweaks and changes over time.
To determine whether or not your current content is working for you, start by tracking several metrics:
–The number of visitors: The number of visitors to your site, as well as the percentage new versus returning, may be shown in performance reports. Take note if a large proportion of those who visit from search engines or social media sites are new to your site. Inquiring about what they were seeking for might help you evaluate whether there is anything lacking on your site.
–The location of the visitor: When you improve your digital marketing, you can create analytics reports that reveal where people are located and how close they are to each other when they visit your website. This information is crucial for determining which languages are most popular in your region, as well as assessing how many individuals speak those languages.
–Bounce Rate: The percentage of consumers who abandon a website after seeing only one page. This might be due to the site's poor quality content, and it frequently indicates a lack of interest in what is being offered.
The next step is analyzing your blog's analytics - don't skip this part! You want to look for trends in visitor behavior that could indicate a problem with the way you're writing blog posts. For example, if your average time on page is dropping and you're seeing an unusually high bounce rate across several different posts - it may be the case that these articles are poorly written or don't provide enough useful information for readers to stay engaged with them after reading just one page. You can use this data as a starting point when creating your next blog post.
Now your ready to start a blog for your business!
Blogging shouldn't feel like an obligation - it should be something that your business enjoys doing and is willing to improve upon over time. Don't create blog posts for the sole purpose of increasing website traffic or boosting SEO; instead, consider blogging as an opportunity to grow as a marketer and provide valuable content for your customers. Blogging isn't always easy, but when it's done right the benefits can be invaluable!
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