If you happen to run a blogpost or are looking to create one, you may be well aware that ‘blogging’ is undoubtedly one of the best ways to leverage your content, and a highly effective ‘tool’ to realise your Content Marketing or Inbound Marketing goals.
If you’re just starting a business blogpost, the thought of standing out and being able to carve a space with your blog content, can seem quite ‘far-fetched’ given there are over 2 million blogposts published each day.
The benefits of blogging however, easily outweigh the hard work that goes into creating a successful blog. The stats below clarify what I mean:
- Websites with a blog tend to have 434% more indexed pages.
- B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not.
- Marketers who prioritise blogging are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their efforts.
- Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.
- 45% of marketers say blogging is the #1 most important piece of their content strategy.
Besides, blogs these days are an integral asset of your brand persona. Company websites which don’t have a dedicated blog page, or a separate blog portal are not seen as a credible brand or a trusted authority in their respected industry.
Having a consistent flow of blogposts with original and exceptional content (news, trends, tips, How Tos, etc.), on issues and pain points related to target audience and customers, will immediately establish yourself as an expert in your chosen niche and help you stand apart from your competitors.
Here are some crucial insights you may want to consider if you’re looking to create a successful blog for your business:
1. What Are Your Blogging GOALS And PURPOSE ?
As obvious as it may sound, you need to know where you’re going with your blog. It’s critical you are ‘crystal clear’ on why you’re starting a blog and what exactly you want to get out of it.
Are you blogging to make sales? Increase engagement? Boost traffic? Or convert more leads? Defining your goals will help you focus more and you’ll be able to achieve them more easily.
The goals can be overarching such as; Yearly Goals to those reflecting a shorter period in time such as Monthly, Weekly or Daily goals. Your yearly goals could be something like – Getting 10000 email subscribers, or increase your Facebook or Instagram following by 30,000.
A shorter monthly goal could be running a social media contest or a blog podcast/webcast each month to make headway with increasing your social media following. Similarly your weekly goals may include sending one newsletter to your subscribers with links to the best articles of the week, and daily goals could be writing a blog post each day and posting it to social media platforms.
The Purpose of a blog is more towards understanding and connecting with the readers, contrary to its goals, which is mostly ‘brand-centered’. It’s more concerned with finding an exposure for the brand amongst the targeted demography – for which bloggers should be clear as to why people should read their content and how can the information be ‘highly relevant’ and of great value to the audience.
Yaro Starak, a successful blogger is right on the money, when he says, “It’s the purpose, the benefit, the reason why, the what’s in it for me statement that gives your blog meaning to a new visitor”
2. Who Are Your Audience/Prospects?
You’d be aiming in the dark, if you didn’t know who you’re looking to attract. In other words, who is your target audience or your Buyer Personas?
Having a thorough understanding of the demography, consumption behaviour, lifestyle preferences, career choices, professional and social roles, and everything that can help you define your audience or ‘customers-to-be’ is crucial - long before you start thinking about the content you’d like to pen your blogs on.
Once you’ve identified your ideal audience, you can then go about crafting content that’s relevant and equally of value to your prospective customers.
If you need a hand at creating a detailed buyer persona, please refer to this article from HubSpot for further reading.
3. Do You Work From An Editorial Calendar?
An ‘Editorial Calendar’ may seem like a to-do list scheduled to be carried out on a monthly basis, but itis very effective in helping you write your posts consistently and strategically, bringing a positive outcome in the long haul.
Though it is advisable to grab hold of great ideas when you can, be it on napkins, post-it-notes, or emails sent to yourself, or through apps like Evernote, it’s not practical and/or productive to only base your content topics on randomly collected ideas.
An Editorial Calendar acts as a guide to help you produce a steady stream of blog content, it helps you to be accountable to the dates and efficiently adhere to your content strategy. A prerequisite for a content calendar is the ‘content strategy’. A content calendar typically helps to hammer your content choices envisaged in your ‘content strategy’ towards the right direction.
An editorial/content calendar could be in the form of a simple spreadsheet, to a dynamic and completely interactive map of your content cycle. Whichever process you choose to construct your editorial calendar, it should be able to capture and elaborate how your blog content and other editorial assets are going to unfold into the future, all the while being in sync with your Content Marketing Strategy.
If you’d like to explore more on editorial calendars, please refer to the article from CMI on Editorial Calendar Tools and Templates.
4. Market And Measure
Let’s say you’re consistently publishing blogs as per your schedule, with well researched content that’s relevant and is of huge value to your readers. But blogging is only half done if you do not promote or market your work.
Your blogs will only find the required traffic/audience and momentum, if it’s distributed and shared through social media, emails, newsletters, eBooks, or promoted via podcasts, videos and webinars.
Whether you prefer to use links in your Facebook account, tweet the topic, guest post on a popular site, or simply use a CTA (call to action) button on your email to amplify the reach, promoting your blogs is key to finding the much needed exposure to your brand and establishment of your expertise in the field.
The next move naturally would be to measure the success of your blogging effort, against the goals you’ve laid out initially. These metrics can be obtained through various analytical tools such as; Google Analytics, Scoop.it, Buffer, Followerwonk, Cyfe, Sumo, etc.
If you’re looking to measure your overall Inbound Marketing and Sales ROIs, then you can always opt for more sophisticated software like HubSpot’s Growth Stack.
Finally…
When it comes to creating successful business blogs, ‘quick fixes’ will not yield any positive results. It takes time, dedication, patience and the ‘grit’ of delivering quality content on a consistent basis to earn the ‘authority’ and credibility of owning a successful business blog!
If you'd like further assistance or would like to discuss anything covered today, we'd love to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249 5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Our Website is element7digital.com.au
