Blogs can power a business’ growth, elevate a brand, and keep it on top of Google search results. When you are just starting one, however, it can be overwhelming. Even if you hire digital marketing services for your business, you need to know what makes a business blog thrive.
There is so much to learn about creating a business blog, and you can easily get lost in a sea of details and things to do. To succeed in driving leads for your company, you need to have a strategy when building your blog. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Create categories related to your business
Write content related to what you sell. Your blog posts must support the work you do; taken together, they must form a cohesive whole that complements your products or services. As such, you should have categories or content pillars for your posts.
These categories are ‘buckets’ where you sort these topics. There should be three to five categories for a business blog, and each post should fall under at most two of these. A marketer for a meal planning service, for example, could write about nutrition, organization, and wellness. These are distinct topics, but all three are related to the company’s offerings.
Write down ideas for your blog posts
Once you have decided on categories, you can start brainstorming topics for each. Focus on informing people; you are writing to solve a problem for your audience or educate them on a topic. Each category needs at least five topics to begin. Solution-focused, “how-to” content is good. “How to identify fresh produce,” for instance, can fall under the nutrition category in the meal planning service blog from the previous example.
Business owners are often afraid to give all their knowledge away because they think readers will take the information and do things themselves. While some would do this, others would eventually hire a digital marketing services provider. Since you helped them for free through your posts, they will be more likely to hire you over another company.
Aside from how-to articles, informative content also draws audiences. This content revolves around educating potential clients or customers on what they should know before buying from you or signing up for your service.
Use keyword research to support your strategy
Verify your ideas for blog posts by doing keyword research on the topics. Search for keywords that support your ideas; since you want to make sure people will read your posts, you have to target things people search for and write articles that could incorporate these phrases. Use long-tail keywords, which consist of three or more words, since they are more specific and are often low-competition phrases.
Ranking for “weight” or “weight loss,” for instance, is not worth the energy you’ll put in since so many pages already talk about it. “Weight loss for moms” is better since fewer pages are talking specifically about it.
Use research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Moz’s Keyword Explorer when coming up with keywords, and note both search volume and the keyword difficulty. Another technique you could use is taking keywords from Google, YouTube, and Pinterest autocomplete suggestions.
Write a blog post title based on your research
The title is one of the most crucial parts of a blog post. It determines if someone will click through to read what else you have to say. Do not give a vague title that only has one to three words; this does not tell your audience what is in store for them. Make your titles specific and straightforward, and it will surely get more views.
Conclusion
Starting a blog can be difficult, but you will succeed if you strategize well. When coming up with topics, you cannot just choose whatever comes to mind; all your posts must serve your audience or customers. Providing how-to and informative articles on subjects related to your products is a great way to begin.
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