Increasing organic traffic to your construction company website can seem challenging. You’ve heard you need consistent web content to boost your search rankings and improve overall optimization. But why and how?
Businesses drive traffic to their website with blog content. They also are more visible in their industry and often achieve more in sales and engagement. It’s true for all companies and construction businesses are no different.
If it still seems daunting, think of it this way. The steps to building your best construction blog are basic and easy:
- Plan
- Write
- Post
Posting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to a company blog can make a sizeable difference in search results for your company. And dare we say blog writing can be fun, as well as productive?
Let’s step it out with seven specifics.
Know Your Purpose and Goals
The best strategy for growing organic traffic through blogging starts with knowing your purpose. Think about what you want your blog to accomplish. If you want to educate, consider that your blog’s purpose. If you want to inform, make that your blog’s purpose.
Its purpose is different from the goals. Your goals might be to reach more potential customers, generate more leads, build relationships and trust within the construction industry, or build company brand recognition, but those are not the blog’s purpose. If establishing leadership in the construction industry—locally or regionally—is your goal, then your blog’s purpose may be to instruct or advise.
Determining and sticking to your purpose can help you choose topics and help you develop the voice and tone you want to take in your posts. It should work toward your goals.
Your purpose also serves as a benchmark for content. If something you want to write doesn’t suit your purpose, reconsider posting that content, unless you make it clear to your visitors that you’re varying your purpose for a reason. But fluctuating between educating and entertaining, or informing and persuading can make your content seem pointless and unprepared.
An example of a construction blog that understands its purpose is The Construction Informer.
One look at this interesting blog and you get the purpose. No confusion about what it’s supposed to accomplish.
Plan your Tasks
- Document how often you will blog. You can even build it into a calendar that aligns with your social media posts, to link them. It’s dependent on your purpose and goals, but plan to blog once a week.
- Once you’ve decided on your purpose, decide on a voice for your blog. Ideally, it should connect with your purpose. Informal? Authoritative?
- Also decide what action you want readers to take on your blog. If you want them to download a tip sheet or link to a sales sheet, how will you write about that in your blog? If you want them to sign up for emails, how will you approach it? Think about how you might write content that leads visitors to fill out a request for a quote.
Know your Target Audience
Know who your target audience members are and understand their expectations. Do you have a primary and secondary audience?
People read blogs for various reasons, but often it’s because they have a problem they want to solve—and they’re looking to your blog content or your business to solve it.
Your company probably receives dozens (or more) emails a day about this problem, or one like it. Think about how they would search in Google to solve it and that’s where your keywords start. And those are your first keywords.
Remember to address the pain points of your potential customers. If a property owner, developer, or project manager is searching the internet for a general contractor, there’s a good chance they had a need.
Make sure your blog posts focus on their pain points and provide some sort of solution to the challenge they’re facing. In the end, they’ll likely see you as an expert and get in touch for more information.
Also consider what your target audience asks of you online, on the job site or in your brick-and-mortar location. That’s the value you can add in a blog. Don’t confuse it with a direct sales pitch. If you’re in the construction business and you keep blasting your audience with promotional content, they may not care. If you share case studies about work in your specialty or sub-industry, they may learn from the content and search you out for additional insights.
Look at the Federal Construction blog, whose audience is crystal clear. If you’re a federal construction contractor and you need legal information and resources, this blog can speak to you.
Also, consider sub-industries or specialties and who those audiences for your construction blog might be, such as this architecture-centric blog.
Audiences interested in business strategies may be fans of a blog similar to Building Design + Construction.
Keep a List of Blog Topics
While that might seem like a ton of blog topics to come up with, it is a lot easier than you might realize. You never really know when inspiration will hit. That’s why it is important to always keep a running list of blog ideas with you. You can do this the old-fashioned way with a pen and paper or just simply add a note file to your smartphone. Each time you start to compose a post, refer to that list.
And be sure to mix general topics with those specific to your company or construction specialty. Construction companies usually have quite a bit to talk about, particularly during boom growth times or during uncertain economic times—so, all the time. Whether you’ve recently taken on a stimulating project that tests your abilities, or want to recognize staff members, there’s usually an idea for a blog post.
But avoid making it all about you all the time. Mix it up by adding general topics about types of buildings, new or evolving materials, different approaches to design, architectural influences, industry issues, such as (topic-of-late) supply chain, or whatever makes the most sense for what your company builds and what affects it most.
When you decide on a topic, think about what the call to action will be related to that topic. This will help you avoid leaving your readers hanging at the end of a blog post. Instead, give them a clear call to action that explains the next steps you want them to take.
It doesn’t need to be complex, but make sure it’s connected to your blog’s purpose and your goals. You could simply ask them to leave a comment or follow you on social media.
Brainstorm Keywords—Then Research Them
While adding blog posts about specific construction projects can be fun to read, you’ll still need to do a fair amount of keyword research before you start writing. Brainstorm keywords related to your specific sub-specialty or business.
CRM platform HubSpot suggests bloggers looking for good search results should “concentrate on long tail keyword phrases 3-4 words long–if your business is in one specific geography, that’s a great way to target your keyword phrases. You want to be choosing slightly more obscure keywords that are highly relevant to your business. More obscure = easier to rank for = easier to get to the front page of Google. Furthermore, obscure words will be more specific to your business and the types of products and services you provide. Both are key to driving quality traffic to your site.”
When identifying keywords for your blog topics, one of the most effective strategies is to identify keywords for each stage of the Buyer’s Journey and then create content for those keywords. By doing this, you are creating content that will resonate with most users—building a strong blog for years to come.
If you’re not confident in your ability to brainstorm keywords, there are multiple tools available online to make this happen. Google Ads Keyword Planner is both free and generally effective. Choose terms that get a fair amount of traffic and include them in your blog posts.
Share Blog Posts on Social Media
Having an omnichannel presence is crucial when it comes to digital marketing. After you’ve published your latest construction blog post, don’t forget to share it on your company’s social media pages. Often, this can lead to an uptick in readers as your followers genuinely want to read what you have to say.
Speaking of social, remember how images and video are particularly effective. Use that knowledge with your construction blog, as the industry and subindustries are visual goldmines.
Even though the Construction Dive blog is packed with information, the photos on the site keep it from being a wall of words—even if they’re great words.
Simply adding text to your blog and hoping for the best simply won’t do. Instead, you need to find a photo to go along with it. There are several excellent stock photo galleries online where you can purchase professional images at a reasonable rate. You can start with free image sites, such as Unsplash or Pixabay – just remember to credit the photos. Or, you can shoot or create your own images, which will add authenticity to your topic.
By making sure you have some sort of visual to go along with your topic, you’re making it far more interesting for readers.
Avoid Common Mistakes in Grammar and Wording
The good news is that you don’t have to have advanced degrees in English, or even be a world-class writer, to create posts for your blog. But you do need to have a firm grasp of how to avoid common mistakes in grammar and wording. If this seems like a challenge, invest in editing software, such as Grammarly, or hire someone to proofread and edit your work. Clean up your blog, just as you would a job site.
Know When You Need Help with Your Blog
There might come a time when you’re totally out of post ideas. Working with a digital marketing company with people who specialize in content creation for contractors is an excellent way to give your business blog new life.
They’ll know exactly how to optimize each post for maximum effectiveness and offer topic ideas you might not have considered on your own.
ER Marketing offers a wide range of digital marketing services specifically tailored to commercial construction companies. Contact us today to start a conversation.
