The research is clear: blogging is one of the most important content marketing and lead generation strategies for businesses. 76% of B2B marketers are reported to blog regularly, while 45% of marketers consider blogging their most important marketing strategy. HubSpot’s 2017 State of Inbound Report indicated that 63% of marketers believe their greatest challenge to be generating traffic and leads. Along with social media, a company blog is one of the most effective tools to solve this problem.
Not only can a professional blog show the human side of your business, it can also establish you as an authority in your industry, as well as boost your company’s SEO and ranking in search engine results.
In this month’s blog post, we share how to create an effective company blog:
Define Your Goals
The first step to creating an effective company blog is to define your goals and determine what the focus of your blog will be. An effective blog is characterised by its ability to provide its audience with useful information and insights, whether this be into the company, your industry, or providing solutions to problems that your readers may be facing. Another thing to consider is what you would like the blog to achieve. Would you like to establish yourself as an authority in your field, or provide an insight into the inner workings of your company? Are you attempting to generate more leads, or increase engagement with your product or service? Your goals for the blog will determine everything from your update schedule to the tone and content of your writing. Never blogged before? Check out our useful infographic on blogging for beginners.
Know Your Audience
The next step to creating a blog for your company is to know your audience. If you already have an established audience, then Google Analytics and other analytic programs can help you determine the approximate age, gender, location and interests of your audience. You can then tailor content to fit the needs and interests of your community. For more advice on how to connect with your audience, here is our blog post on Digital Strategy: How to Turn a Buyer Base Into a Community. However, if you are a relatively new company without an established client base, you can create buyer personas, detailed profiles of your ideal customer or target audience. Buyer personas help companies to figure out who they should be targeting with their marketing, and the needs, issues and desires of those people which they can fulfil with their product or service. Once you know your target audience, you can begin to create content that will genuinely benefit and inform your customers.
Write Creatively and Often
Australians on average spend over five hours a day on the Internet. But with so many established blogs, how can you ensure that your content will cut through the noise? The answer: creative, personalised content which is updated regularly. A variety of creative content will keep your readers interested, and a regular daily, weekly or monthly upload schedule will ensure that your audience won’t grow tired of or forget about your blog posts. At TWMG, we recommend WordPress as a CMS not only because of its built-in blogging platform, but also the ability to quickly and easily schedule your posts. Keep in mind that your blog content and tone should reflect your company brand and public persona – any discord between the two might cause your audience to view you as untrustworthy or unprofessional. Stuck on ideas for blog posts? Have a look through our 20 inspiring prompts to get you over writer’s block.
Optimise for SEO
The key to an effective blog that can engage new clients and generate new leads for your business is to optimise your posts for SEO. Starting a blog will automatically have SEO benefits, as websites with a blog are proven to rank higher on search engines such as Google, generating 97% more indexed links with 434% more indexed pages. Researching popular keywords and topics for your industry to use as the subject of blog posts will also enhance the rating of your company website. You should always use keywords with caution, however, as too high a proportion of keywords can be identified as spam and can also alienate your readers. Your competitors can be a good source of information as to which type of posts receive the most engagement and response, as well as help you identify knowledge gaps which you can fill with your own content. Curious which Australian company blogs are the most popular? Check out Smart Company’s list of the best business blogs of 2017.
Share on Social Media
The final step in creating an effective company blog is to ensure that you are sharing each update on your social media channels. Blogging and social media go hand-in-hand, and part of your digital strategy should involve getting your content in front of the widest range of people possible. With recent statistics showing that Facebook has 15 million active Australian users per month, while Instagram has 9 million users and Twitter 3 million users, sharing your content has never had a higher potential reward in the form of engagement and lead generation. It is worth considering how your blog posts will appear on each social media platform: for example, a well-designed blog post banner will work well on Instagram, while particularly effective quotes can be shared on LinkedIn or Twitter. Depending on the content, older blog posts can also often be updated or repurposed and then shared again, resulting in higher levels of engagement on social media platforms.
Following these five steps will result in a company blog that will serve your clients and your business for years to come.
The team of digital experts at TWMG can help you create, develop and manage an effective company blog for your business with our range of content creation services.
To put your business at the forefront of digital innovation, give us a call on 1300 008 964 or Contact Us here.