How To Use A Blog For Business
The benefits of blogging first became known over 20 years ago. Since then, they’ve been chopped and changed into a variety of guises and purposes ranging from personal, travel and, of course, business. But is your brand maximising the potential of this powerful form of content creation?
Before you start a business blog, you should consider:
- Forming a blog content strategy
- Adding value for your target audience
- Optimising content for search engines
- Maintaining regular and frequent posting
We’ve unpacked these tips and many more in this guide. Read on to discover how to use a blog for business purposes…
Plan your blog content
Knowing what to post and finding the time to post it are two familiar headaches that can stunt the blogging process, especially in small businesses. Yet there’s a very simple solution: it’s all in the planning.
Allocate time to lay your brand out on the table, and work out what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. Are you a newcomer that needs to establish yourself first? Or do you need to jump right in and directly highlight a product or service?
This should trigger some direction and inspiration for topics, titles and messaging. String your posts together in an achievable timeline, and you’ll find the path to creating effective blogs is much easier to navigate.
Write blogs for your customers
When beavering away on a post, it’s easy to lose track of the core reason you’re writing it. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and imagine them reading your blog. Does it sound like a piece of valuable content, tailor-made especially for them? If not, you may need to remind yourself of your customer personas.
Write as though your entire readership is one person, and do everything you can to pique their interest. This may involve thinking about which stage of the sales funnel they’re in.
With this technique, you’ll find it much easier to bring your target market into your brand and inspire an action.
Answer your target audience’s questions
At all stages of the sales funnel, your customer may have a few questions before progressing further towards conversion.
So, what’s the most effective way to solve your customers’ queries? A rigid FAQs section in the forgotten corners of your website should do the trick, right? Wrong. Although the answers are there, you’ve made the customer work for it without offering anything in return.
Blogs can answer questions in ways that go above and beyond expectations. Not only will your customers find what they’re looking for, but you’ll be providing further value in the form of knowledge or entertainment. It’s a great way to build trust.
Match content with search engine trends
While you laser in on shaping an engaging blog post, don’t miss out on the golden opportunity to boost your way up search engine rankings. Research relevant keywords that match search trends on Google, and sprinkle these throughout your post as you go.
There are a couple of best practices to follow, so carry out a little research and find out what the biggest search engines recommend in terms of keyword placement and repetition.
Google’s algorithms are also fond of links. Just make sure they send the reader to relevant content, and don’t overuse them as this could stifle the post.
Keep up your publishing frequency
Consistent posting is one of the most important factors to ensuring your business blog becomes worth its time. A dip in momentum can lead to less engagement, which defeats the original purpose.
The good news is that this doesn’t have to be a challenge. First of all, when creating content, don’t get too hung up on length.
Some blogs will be shorter than others and vice versa – the aim here is to maintain frequency.
Become a reliable source that customers can check in on to constantly learn from. Try once a week, but ultimately find what works for you and stick to it.
Drive traffic to your business website
Now that you’ve got engaging and relevant blog posts lined up, it’s time to get people to read them. We all know that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a converted customer. But to get there, you need to drive website traffic.
If your search engine optimisation is up to scratch, this will help. But there are many other ways to point potential customers to the article section of your site. Email marketing and social media act as ideal gateways to your blogs, so use these to boost your promotion efforts.
Remember to also drive traffic to other pages of your website with the blog itself. Never leave the reader hanging without a call to action – whether that’s to fill out a contact form, check out your pricing plans, or discover your product guides.
How can Making You Content help?
Blog posts are a powerful tool for breaking down the digital wall between you and your audience. But to write a blog that really performs, there are a few fundamentals to follow. Of course, we understand that not everyone has the time or resources to achieve this internally.
MYC has the expertise and industry experience to assess your brand, form a strategy and reach your audience with engaging blogs for your website. With our blogging know-how, you’ll increase meaningful customer connections, drive long-term results through higher conversion rates, and support the growth of your business.
Want to harness the benefits of blogging? Let’s make it happen. Our copywriters are poised and ready to help you get the most from this type of content, whatever your end goal may be.
