Companies having a blog get more number of leads. Content is still the most powerful tool in the marketing world. It is the tool that helps attract buyers attention, create curiosity, develop interest and, and nurture them to become customers. So, it is high time that you start a business blog to get targeted visitors. Today’s post is about simple, actionable tips to start a blog to fit into your marketing plan.
Still not convinced?
Let us look at some statistics that tell about the power of blogging.
1. 79% of online shoppers spend 50% of their shopping time researching products online. Source: HubSpot
2. B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not. Source: HubSpot
3. 81% of companies consider their blogs “useful,” “important” or “critical.”
4. 77% of Online users read blogs. Source: The West Program
5. 346 million people read blogs throughout the world. Adding a blog to your website attracts many of these readers. Source: The Future Buzz
Set up your Business blog
To start a business blog, you need a website. Pick a blogging platform such as WordPress, choose a domain name, set up your blog, customize your blog by using a proper theme, decide layout and use plugins you need.
Develop a content strategy
Creating a Content strategy is important to keep track of your blogging efforts. How often will you update your blog? What type of posts will you share? You need a content calendar to figure out your content strategy. You need to consider a few things when creating your content strategy. Who are your potential audience, what problem you are going to solve, what will be the format of your posts etc.?
First of all, figure out the frequency of you posting. Will you update your blog once in a week or twice in a week? Also, fit into your schedule the time to write and upload them, to be very realistic and on track.
After the frequency of posting is decided, brainstorm the type of content do you want to publish. “How-to-posts” “long-form guides, preview new products, case studies, infographics and other formats. Make room for seasonal elements like holidays, trends and special updates also. To keep everything on track, make a note of deadlines. Using all these elements create your editorial calendar.
With so much to write about, sometimes, it becomes difficult to know what to write about. So, to avoid this hurdle, keep a pen and paper everywhere so that you can jot down flowing ideas. Also, you can take the help of tools like Feedly, Google Alert, Buzzsumo, etc. You need not think every time about what to write.
Start blogging
When starting to blog, keep in mind that you are writing for your readers, and your audience. You should need to know what is the aim of your post. Depending on the aim, include a call to action, start a conversation, promote a product, or get a link.
- Your blog should be helpful to the readers like it should give some advice, tips, tell about tools or something that readers can use to take actions.
- Start with an engaging introductory paragraph that promotes the reader to read it further.
- divide your content in a suitable paragraph with interesting subheadings, and end the posts with a question or a call to action.
- Formatting is an important element of every online content as it should be visually attractive, so skimmers find it easy to read and grasp info. Use subheadings and lists. You can use your SEO words in subheading to make good for SEO also.
- take time to create a good, engaging title. The title should give an idea of what this is about. It should use your keyword once only and should be between 6-13 words long. You can use CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to fine tune the titles of your posts.
- Proofread: It may sound a trivial step, but of high importance as grammar and punctuation help in creating your online voice. With lots of errors may lead to loss of your
- Once you are done with writing your posts, it’s time to publicize it. Share it on your Facebook and Twitter LinkedIn Also, link it back to your future posts.
Optimize your post for SEO
The main aim of any business blog is to update the business website with fresh content. Readers love fresh content, and so does Google. For SEO purpose, it is important to optimize your blog.
- Research keywords for your topic and use them wisely in your content. Use long-tail keywords to get targeted traffic. Once you find keywords, use SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO plugin to help follow various SEO parameters.
- Update your blog as often as possible. It is important to update your blog on the same day of the week and at the same time of the day to invite more traffic. Research shows that blogs that update daily get 5 times more traffic and 4 times more lead than blogs that update in a week.
- Also, research shows that once you have more than 50 posts, your blog traffic will increase by 53%. When you post more than 200 posts, your traffic will go up by 4.5times.
- Social share: Put social share buttons to let people share your content on their social media platforms. According to Statistics, 67% people judge the credibility of your content by its social shares. Also, work to increase your social media followers as more followers lead to more traffic and backlinks.
Winding up
A business blog can be very useful to promote your business online. At the same time, posting about any random things will not help. You should have a well-planned content strategy, good content, optimized posts and content promotion.
I know creating blog posts regularly is a huge task and takes a lot of time and effort to create quality content. If you are finding it difficult to create blog posts regular in your busy schedule, hiring a good blog writer is the best decision. We at Writeshack, provide high-quality blog writing services to help brands with best blog posts daily and regularly.
For any query contact us TODAY