Writing a business blog versus a personal blog is a very different thing considering your targeted audience. For a professional blog, your brand must speak about who you are as a company whilst providing value to your readers. Your blog posts should aim to increase your brand’s visibility, traffic and engagement from your relevant audience(s).
People’s attention span is very low, the reason why you only have 2 to 3 seconds to engage and drive them to click on your website to read your blog post. A high-quality content marketing strategy is the foundation of digital marketing, so let’s get started on how you can create valuable and compelling blog posts that will convert.
But before we dig in, set yourself a goal that will truly make the difference, and that is to provide value to your readers through your content. This is the most important thing when writing blog posts, and let us quickly tell you why. Pay more attention to the words you use, as they will make your reader come back to your website again and again. First impressions of your blog matter and people base them on a few things such as blog aesthetic, photos, writing style, and so on. But we have a motto when we write our blogs which is “the golden trio” – Educate, Inspire and Entertain.
To put it simply? Teach by telling people a story, inspire by adding personal examples of your business/brand or even you as a writer, educate and be entertaining at the same time, and there you have it. A good starting point for creating your first blog that truly converts.
Before even starting to plan out any blog content, you must know what your audience needs and wants. Start with some industry research, competitor analysis, and take a close look at who you are as a brand and what you can offer that your competition can’t.
We have a couple of favourite digital tools to get you started, so make sure you check them out:
Start with a good brainstorm and write down any ideas that come to mind, but focus on choosing a topic that your business will be able to build an audience from. Allow yourself a three-month ‘trial period’ to test out what gets the most interest and traction, and later on, focus on that type of content. You know how they say, you’ll never know until you try, so get going and learn from the experience.
Still not sure what to write about? Think outside the box and go through your company’s emails and pick out FAQs, and write blogs that contain answers to their questions. What you need to focus on is what do you wish your clients knew, so just Google it! It’s as simple as just searching ‘blog ideas for your industry’, so start there.
Try not to go too broad and get specific with your blog topic. You won’t be able to offer the same value to your reader if you pick a vast subject like ‘Christmas Decoration Ideas’. Instead, try to write about ‘Top 10 Christmas Decoration Ideas That You Can Make At Home’, and most likely people will gain much more from your content.
Make your message clear and focused for your audience, and let us give you a small tip (as always) – use Grammarly to save you from any misspellings, punctuation or grammar mistakes. It will save you a lot of time when it comes to content proofreading in the end.
People tend to judge a blog post by its title at first glance, so make sure you pick a compelling headline that your readers will be happy to share. Tip? Include a bit of emotional marketing value within your headline and create an SEO-friendly title to increase your traffic.
Google doesn’t like short-length content, so aim to write at least between 900 and 1500 words, and post all the blogs on your company’s website, keeping your content updated regularly. Try to post a blog once a week, and if you are just at the beginning, aim for a minimum of one blog post per month (but never less, especially once you’ve started).
Also, remember that you will write your blogs for SEO, which if done correctly, it will rank your website higher and higher in Google Rankings. So, once you’ve done your keyword and phrases research, start writing your blog around them (make sure you have a right balance between rank and reach by aiming for both keywords and keyphrases). Tip? On WordPress, you can get some plugins specifically for SEO, so make sure you check them out and instal them to your website.
Very important – Avoid keyword stuffing! All search engines are way too smart to fall for this trick that simply doesn’t work.
Where to place your keywords and phrases?
Tips:
Internal links are only URL’s from your company’s website or where your blogs are getting posted, or other sister sites. By having them in your content, you will keep people on your website, and it will give Google a ‘map’ of your site, which Google loves! So aim at having at least four internal links per blog.
External links are links outside of your company’s website, such as Facebook or Instagram pages, TripAdvisor, etc. You can put as many as you want, but make sure your blog won’t start looking like spam.
So here we are. Congratulations on making it so far! Now it’s time for you to close with a paragraph that will stick in your reader’s minds, create engagement and hopefully encourage shares.
Your last sentence should always be a clear CTA (call-to-action) that stands out.
You can start by briefly summarising your content and adding some conclusions, or even better, finish up with a compelling question where you encourage your reader to have their say. You can even ask for social shares, comments or subscribes (if you have a product/service that you’d like to push in front of your clients, promote them by writing something like ‘see below’).
We have some more tips for you here, so make sure to try them out!
Let us know how is your content marketing plan going, and if you need any extra support in creating high-quality blogs, don’t hesitate to Get In Touch with our friendly team today for a free 30 minutes consultation.