Why would you want a blog page on your business website?
Websites with active blogs have 434% more indexed pages and 97% more inbound links than without.
A blog page builds brand awareness and is an excellent social media asset. It helps build website traffic and gives search engines a reason to keep visiting your website and scoring fresh content. It's something that should be incorporated into a business content marketing strategy to help with SEO
A blog article can be incorporated into an email campaign or newsletter. A link to the article can be posted on multiple social media platforms, creating an opportunity to engage with customers. It can reveal expertise, and problem solving, which can become a good lead generation opportunity
Your competition likely has a blog page, and if they don’t, you will reveal thought leadership and build credibility ahead of them
A blog page should be:
Insightful, helpful, easy to understand, supported with facts and educational
It should contain:
Quality, valuable, relevant and useful information
It is an opportunity for a business to:
Reveal its knowledge, thought leadership and opinions, include keywords and phrases, answer questions, and solve problems
Build or enhance relationships with new or old customers by connecting with an audience at a deeper level
The written content needs to be:
Clear, compelling, well-written and engaging
The articles can be:
Instructional, persuasive, promotional or offer advice and reveal expertise
They could contain:
News, updates, images, videos, podcasts, competitions, actionable steps or stories
How should you build your blog articles?
Have a goal - what are you trying to achieve?
Do your research
Ask yourself, ‘Who is your audience’ and ‘What are the competitors writing about’ then make the content relevant
Don’t make it too long, up to 1000 words - you can also try micro-blogging
Write well-crafted, easily understood content, taking into consideration the fact that people tend to scan and read a lot of the time
Write the article in sections. Include an introduction, hook lines, subheadings, headings, references, relevant links and a conclusion
Include a call-to-action
What should you write about?
Tips: Choose your topics wisely and make them industry-relevant. Through your blog articles, show a human side to your business. Choose your style and tone of writing and try to be consistent. Be on trend, sometimes try to be different, and show your USP. Find gaps in published content, what is missing, and how can you help your readers with content that hasn’t been published before?
What should you do once you have written your article?
Proofread your work and use a grammar tool such as Grammarly
Be aware of plagiarism and copyright laws
Have permission to use images and videos if you don’t own them
Present your content clearly and with branding
Publish your article with a good title, taking into consideration keywords and phrases
What should you do once you publish an article on your blog page?
Share your content on your social media platforms, email campaigns or newsletters
Ask readers to share your content
Link the article to other articles or pages on your website
Tip: Create a content strategy as part of your marketing plan and include a content schedule.
What next?
Use your website analytics and social media analytics to find out what content is popular with your readers
Keep doing what is working for your business, don't waste time on content that isn't generating interest and traffic
Repurpose old, popular content
Update facts and figures in published articles if need be
If you aren't confident about writing, or too busy to create content, you can always use a freelance writer like myself.
Contact me by email rachel.roussell@gmail.com or call 07800887857