Chances are you’ve read a lot about blogs as a marketing tool. You probably follow several blogs and read their content every day.
But have you ever tried blogging for your business?
According to Wikipedia, the modern blog started as an online journal. It was a way for people to keep a running account of their personal lives. And though this form of blogging kicked off in the early 1990s, it wasn’t until 2004 before the role of blogs became mainstream. Political consultants and news service organizations solidified blogging’s place in the world for the modern time.
Writing and publishing a blog post won’t gain you much traction. It’s the marketing that gets traffic. And that’s where the work begins.
A Great Blog Starts With Great Content
Let’s face it, without great content, your blog would be nothing. Have you ever clicked over to a blog that didn’t have much to say? They have a few posts that don’t say a whole lot, and they’re dated several months back.
Click. Back out. Find something else. Something more meaningful.
What makes a good blog post? Think about what you like to read.
Content starts with understanding your community. Why are they visiting your site? What are they looking for within your industry, your company, or even you personally?
People want information, and that can take on many different looks.
They want how-to information.
People often start with a “how to” long before they realize what they are looking for.
How to fix a toilet – this can lead to a plumber providing tips on the most common problems.
How to remove a stain – this can lead to a carpet cleaner teaching how to remove red wine.
How to knit – this can lead to a craft site that provides tips on everything from the latest stitches to patterns and more.
They want their questions answered and problems fixed.
Want to know why smart personal assistant sales have grown so much in the past couple of years? It’s because they make it easy to get the answers people are looking for.
Ever said: “Hey Siri …” Yep, us too. And the winner of that query is usually a blog post filled with detailed information that is targeted specifically at what the asker is asking. (And yes, it matters now more than ever that your information is targeted to how your audience asks the question, either through desktop or mobile devices.)
They want to be entertained.
Think news sites aren’t entertainment? Think again. They know how to pull people in with perfectly worded titles.
People look for things that will motivate them, capture the shock and awe. They look for a twist in the things they expect – that’s entertainment. Will people really click on “12 Travel Tips You Should Never Ignore When You’re Flying Internationally?” I think we all know the answer to that.
Even when we’re looking for answers or have a need in mind, we want something that entertains us, not bores us. We want to learn in an exciting and fun way.
Remember the teacher that read from slides in a monotone voice? Boring.
How about the teacher that jumped up and down, excited about everything she taught?
The same goes for content online. Sure, we’re searching and looking for content. But we want it to be exciting. We want to learn valuable tips in a fun way. Can you incorporate that into your blog posts? Of course. If you have the right writer to do it.
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What’s The Purpose? Why Blog In The First Place?
Blogs are important because they allow you to add fresh content to your site. You do it to talk to your potential viewers. You add it to attract people to your business.
But if you’re like many business owners, you may have lost the context of why it’s all so meaningful. Why should you do it in the first place?
Blogs grew in popularity because they provided an easy way to get content online. What’s more, with every blog post you created, if you wrote it correctly, you could provide targeted, well-searched information that people wanted.
People come to your site in one of two ways.
- They know you and type in your URL to get to your site.
- They don’t know you and get to your site via a link.
Unless you’re an Amazon, the people that type in your web address are probably fairly low. These are our customers that love us, the people we connect with when we’re out and about.
The rest of our prospects don’t know us yet but are looking for something more. And that’s where your potential lies. That’s where blogs are so powerful. And why content leads the way.
Every blog post you publish creates its own unique page. That page can be titled, written, and keyworded in a very specific way. Google loves this.
What’s more, if your content is high quality, other sites might choose to showcase your posts too. Are you a furniture store that regularly works with real estate agents for staging and recommendations to clients? Maybe they’d be happy to feature your best blog posts. It’s a win-win for both parties.
Taking Content To The Next Level
Content is king. Chances are you’ve heard that a time or two.
What that means for you is your content can help you reach out to your prospects and clients in many, many ways.
When you create a blog post, it resides on your website “forever.” (For as long as you choose anyway.) That means that if you create high quality, readable content, it will continue to work for you in the foreseeable future.
But it’s not just sitting there residing on your site. You can use it in many ways.
Feed it into your social sites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Convert it to a YouTube video. Add a graphic and transfer it to Instagram.
Share it with partner businesses. If your content will benefit partner businesses you work with, why not let them share your post with their audience too?
Send it in an email. Not every customer visits your site regularly. Send it to them instead.
Create a whitepaper or ebook. If you expand on an idea you’ve started in a blog post, you can repurpose your content in a different package. This gives your content more value and gives you another way of sending the content out to different resources.
Turn it into a presentation. Sometimes blog posts can take on special meaning with your audience. They resonate with certain topics more than others. Whether you give a short presentation at your local chamber or start offering classes in-house, blog posts can allow you to feel out what your audience wants to learn most.
Is It Time To Blog?
We get it; not everyone is a writer. After all, you have more important things to do in your day than sitting down and writing out a detailed article.
Not only that, it takes effort to understand how to write a blog in the right way. The right length. The right keywords. The right voice.
That’s where we can help. Is this the year you bring blogging into your marketing plans?
