A regular blog is an important part of a content marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing strategy. It can help the small business entrepreneur communicate directly with prospects and customers, provide product information, and even start a dialogue.
But if you’re not sure about your blogging skills, you could do more harm than good. Doing anything without a plan can be disruptive, so here are ten ways to make your blogs sing:
1. Have a Reason: Don’t just start writing about whatever comes to your mind – think about what you want to accomplish first. Are you presenting information, educating prospects, selling, or building name recognition?
2. Develop an Editorial Calendar: Don’t use up all your ideas in one blog. Lay out a calendar of topics for the year, and outline 3-4 sub-ideas for each topic so your blogs will have consistency and variety.
3. Know Your Audience: Remember that you’re writing for prospects and customers. What do they want to know? What do they need to hear? There must be some benefit to them for reading your blog such as having more information, saving time or money, or living a more fulfilled and enjoyable life.
4. Provide Valuable Content: While a few blogs through the year can be about your business and how it helps customers fulfill a need, the vast majority of the blogs should be on topics that your customers want to learn more about and can use to meet their own objectives.
5. How You Can Help: Although most of the blog should be informational, you can conclude with a brief paragraph about how your business can help. Not a heavy sales pitch, just an invite to visit the website and learn more.
6. Use SEO: If you’re going through the effort of writing a blog, you should get the most out of it by making sure it is SEO-friendly. Learn more about keywords, tags, and HTML coding so that you can incorporate them into your blog posts and increase your chances of being found by the search engines.
7. Don’t Get Lazy: You might think you only need to write a blog post once a month, but don’t get lazy. Your prospects and customers need to hear from you more often or they will quickly move on to your competitors. Plus the search engines now analyze your website to determine whether the information is fresh and topical.
8. Ask for Input: Provide a way for readers to comment or respond on social media. Then answer their questions or respond to their input.
9. Get Creative: You don’t always have to be dull and boring. Every so often mix in a humorous piece or a special offer so they will keep coming back for more.
10. Be Captivating: Always provide just enough information to make your blog a worthwhile read, and to keep readers coming back for more.
Effective blogging can have your business singing a new tune!