Many people think of blogs as just something bloggers do to share their ideas. But there is more to blogging than that. Often blogs are things that even non-readers read. It is a way to learn about a product or service. It is a way to gain knowledge about an industry before actually investing time and energy into a new venture.
That’s why even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer, having a content marketing blog is important. It helps you communicate the nuances of your business without overwhelming a potential customer on the main home page. There are many professional bloggers that are willing to educate themselves about more specialized aspects of your business, so that you, in turn, can educate your customers.
Still wondering why blogging is an essential tool for business growth? It helps build brand awareness, increase website traffic and generate leads. Not to mention, it creates the potential for your business to carve out a niche within your market and engage directly with potential and existing customers.
How to Keep Presenting a Fresh Blog
For many businesses it may seem like topics that customers want to hear about are limited, and some business owners and managers may be rightly concerned that content might seem stale after a while. This can be true, not only because the same content is sitting on your website’s blog page, but also because fresher content across the web is pushing that content down in search engine results, making it harder for potential new customers to find your business.
Knowing Your Target Audience
Finding and defining your target audience is a crucial step in the process. You want to make sure the content you’re writing is meeting your audience’s needs and that your messaging aligns with who you want to attract to your blog. This is important, as neglecting your audience can cost you a lot of time and money on content that just simply isn’t serving your ideal readers. The first step is to understand who you’re writing for and to then develop messaging that is consistent and focused on helping your readers in order to generate valuable traffic.
Creating Effective Content
Once you have a clear understanding of who your target audience is and what their wants and needs are, you can focus on the fun part—creating content and a strong blog content strategy! For the most effective content, you’ll want to address questions, problems or trends within your audience’s industry and to provide actionable takeaways and key considerations for them moving forward. Having a clear solution or action item for your readers will help them view your business as a thought leader within the space and provide them with blogs of substance that will ultimately lead to a boost in the flow of traffic to your website. However, it is important to remember to focus on creating thoughtful, quality content when developing your content strategy, as it’s easy to get carried away and end up simply turning content out for content’s sake instead of providing your customers with blogs of value.
Keeping and Recycling Old Blogs
There are many times you want a blog to promote a certain event or sale for your business. There are also times when you may want to relate to what is going on in your community as a whole or the world around you, and while that can be effective, it is also important to produce evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that readers can find value in whether they are reading it next week or three years down the line.
Search results vary newer content, so when the old stuff is no longer being seen, it is important to still save this valuable information in some sort of database. You or a blogger you hire can rearrange and repurpose your content with minimal additional research.
Researching SEO and Keywords
One of the purposes of a marketing blog is to serve up content that is searchable and that will drive potential new business. When that involves the internet, some attention needs to be paid to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. When people look for specific information online, they type in keywords or phrases to guide them toward the information they are looking for. Most will only scroll a little way down the results page, and just a few will dig a page or two into the results if they aren’t finding the content they are looking for. Many businesses use keyword research tools in order to help them find the best combinations, but even without using a specific tool, there are ways to test your SEO effectiveness. Whenever a search is performed on Google, at the bottom of the page there are additional suggested phrases that may be incorporated into your blog in order to drive more traffic to your site, and customers through your door.
Monitoring Your Social Media and Competition
You may love whatever you are doing for your business, but it is important that your passion goes beyond your own door to the places where your customers congregate online. By looking at what your competitors do, you will see what types of tactics and promotions draw the attention of potential customers. People like to work with businesses that they feel are listening and understanding their needs and wants. Social media and competitor websites can give you raw material that can be translated into something that can drive in customers of your own.
Now that you have a better understanding of how to take a holistic approach to creating and/or maintaining a blog for your business, you can see that it’s not as daunting or complex as you might have originally thought. Not to mention, it opens the door to new ways to communicate with your audience throughout the channel, and ultimately, drive results for your business and showcase your digital marketing efforts.
