Whether it’s building trust in your customer base, creating content for your social media platforms or increasing traffic to your website, there are many reasons why a blog is beneficial for a business.
For business owners, the real question is how to create blog content that both gets read and drives conversions.
In consideration of these content goals, we’ve laid out seven practical tips for creating successful blogs for your business.
1. Use a content calendar.
A content calendar is a simple spreadsheet that lays out all of your content for each month of the year. It includes details such as:
- Blog title
- What the blog is about
- When you plan to post the blog
- Which target audience the blog is aimed at
- What action you intend for the reader to take
It’s a simple tool, but one that will help you to stay organised. By seeing all of your planned content in one place, you’ll be able to avoid doubling up on similar topics, plan for special events (such as Mother’s Day, Easter or Christmas), and ensure you’re targeting different segments of your audience in equal measure.
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2. Find inspiration from your audience.
One common failing in business blogs is that the content covers what the writer or business owner is interested in (such as describing their own products), rather than what the audience wants.
With this in mind, it’s best to take inspiration from your audience for content ideas.
This could be answering some of the most frequently asked questions you receive online or in store, or it could be conducting customer research (such as digging deeper into your customer demographics) and creating content around the wants and needs found there.
It could be as simple as running a survey as to what your audience wants to learn about on your social media channels and checking to see if there are any common themes.
This way, you’ll know you’re creating content that your audience is actively interested in.
3. Make posting a priority.
Planning, creating and posting regular blogs is hard work. You need to be creative, detail-oriented and dedicated to putting in the time, week after week.
That’s why it’s so common for business blogs to fall onto the back burner sooner or later, and why so many become less successful over time.
To reap the rewards of higher website traffic, brand trust and greater conversions, you need to treat your content creation like any other vital part of the business. If it becomes too demanding to keep up with a regular posting schedule, consider passing the task on to an employee or hiring a contractor or agency to take care of it for you.
4. Always offer value.
When planning your content – and every time you post – ask yourself what value you are offering your audience.
Every blog post should inform or entertain your audience in some way, giving them something of value and a reason to read all the way to the end.
This is why it’s so common to see blog content that shares industry advice or tips that readers can benefit from, as it offers something undeniably relevant and useful.
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5. Keep it readable.
It should go without saying that any blog content you create should follow the basic rules of grammar, syntax and have correct spelling.
Equally important is the format and length, which should also allow for easy reading.
For example, audiences won’t read massive blocks of text. Instead, break up your content with subheadings and line breaks.
You should also avoid writing exceptionally long blogs. The ideal length for digital content is anywhere from 300 to 800 words, and anything longer than that can risk boring your readers. If you are writing long-form blogs, ensure that you’re constantly providing insight to the reader throughout the copy, as well as breaking up the text to allow for ease of reading.
6. Use your keywords.
Keywords are the main terms anyone in your audience might use to search for your kind of business in Google.
For example, if you run a landscaping company, your keywords most likely include terms such as ‘landscaping near me’, ‘landscaping quote’ and ‘high quality landscaping’. To figure out exactly what your keywords are, you can use Google’s free tool, ‘Google Keyword Planner’, to gain a better understanding of users’ search queries.
Whatever your keywords are, be sure to use them in your content. Specifically, aim to use them in headlines, subheadings and the first 100 or so words of each blog for maximum effect.
By incorporating your keywords into your content as naturally as possible, you may be able to improve your search engine optimisation (SEO) and grow your website traffic.
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7. Share it.
Once you’ve gone to the effort of creating content for your website, be sure to share it across your social media platforms.
This may help to increase its readership and improve your website traffic. On top of this, sharing your blogs will provide your social followers with more engaging content, encouraging them to stay tuned into your social profile.
You can also get creative with how you share content. For example, you might set a poignant or funny quote from the blog against a visual background to share on social media.
7. Some content is better than no content.
Whether you have the capacity to hire a dedicated content writer or you can only afford to produce online content yourself, committing some time and energy into planning and publishing content can provide unforeseen benefits for you and your business.
But don’t just take it from us, Hubspot found that 56% of marketers who leverage blogging say it’s effective and 10% say it generates the biggest return on investment in comparison to other marketing tactics.
Even if you commit only two hours per week to thinking about your customers’ pain points and feeding them into content ideas as part of a plan, you’ll quickly be on your way to publishing regular content that positions your business higher up in Google’s search results and front-of-mind for potential customers.
Download our FREE infographic checklist of the 7 things to know before writing your blog.
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