Your business’s blog is so much more than just a way to direct more traffic to your main website. Used correctly, it’s a way to engage with your potential customers, build your brand reputation, encourage visitors to interact with you on social media, and prove that you're an authority in your industry. We’ve put together some top tips below on getting it right. And, if you are brand new to blogging, here's how to start your own blog in 60 minutes.
Brainstorm topics and create a schedule
You’ll get the best results from your blog – both in terms of engagement and SEO – if you post on a regular basis. Sounds simple, but when you're also running a business fulltime, finding a few hours to sit down and dedicate to your blog can all too easily get put on the back burner. If you also have to come up with a topic on the spot, you're even more likely to let it slide.
Having a clearly defined schedule with due dates and a list of topics ready to go makes the process a whole lot simpler. Start with your focus keywords, and then use tools like the related searches box at the bottom of the Google results page and Google Analytics to find different angles and longtail keywords to build your posts around. If you find you simply don’t have the time to stick to the schedule, consider training one of your employees who has an interest in digital marketing to take over your blog, or hire a freelancer to help out.
Aim to inform rather than just promote
Of course, you want to use your website to attract new customers, and giving information away for free might seem counterintuitive. However, making your site a valuable resource which helps users solve simple problems on their own means they’re a lot more likely to come to you for help for those issues they can’t resolve.
Companies which offer technical assistance like software troubleshooting or managed IT support are a great example. By using your website’s blog to educate users, giving step-by-step guidelines on how to solve common problems, you’re engendering a sense of trust as well as proving your competency. It shows that you're truly interested in solving your customer’s challenges, and that’s always going to be a major selling point for your brand.
Encourage sharing and engagement
If a visitor has found one of your blog posts to be particularly useful, make it easy for them to spread the word. Make sure there are social sharing buttons embedded in your blog site so they can share a link on their favorite platform with just a click or two. Whenever logical, include a call to action in your blog post – inviting readers to share their own experiences or ask questions. Aside from being great leads, comments on your posts can also become inspiration for additional posts in future, especially if you notice that a lot of questions are focused on a particular aspect.
Use both internal and external links
Linking back to a services page on your main website, or a related subject you’ve covered in another blog post (or internal linking) helps search engines index your site and get a more thorough understanding of what your blog and business is all about – which is good for your SEO rankings. Remember this process applies to older blog posts too – if you cover a subject in greater detail in a recent post, make sure you go back and link the old one to its new counterpart and not just the other way around.
This is also an opportunity to update older blog posts with new information; especially if there have been changes in your industry since the piece was originally posted. Updating older posts is a great way to make them work for you again and get more ‘SEO juice’ out of your hard work.
Using external links to reputable and established sources backs up what you're saying, making your writing more credible. Search engines also use external links as a ranking factor, as they show you're really out to educate and inform rather than just make sales.
Look for guest posting opportunities
You should also have at least some focus on getting backlinks to your blog and website from external sources – and guest blogging is a great way to accomplish this.
Share and share again
Once you’ve published a blog, don’t just let it sit there and hope for the best. Promoting it on our own social media platforms is the first place to start but leveraging your industry connections can help it go a lot further. If you’ve mentioned another brand, related service, resource or website, make sure to tag them in your social posts. They're virtually guaranteed to share the link with their own followers.
Running a business blog takes time, effort and dedication – but it’s still one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business and build your brand recognition and reputation.
