The Internet is Content. What do you have without content? Google SERP would be like a series of Instagram posts with no hashtags or words, so how would you even find the content? Pictures are incredibly important, but without an accompanying narrative they only tell half the story.
Business content comes in a variety of forms: web text, product descriptions, captions, video descriptions, blog posts, and more. Though the internet makes it seem like video is the future and the just Opportunity to move the business forward just because we (also) recommended it something Video content should be incorporated into your 2019 marketing strategy, that doesn’t mean blogging should be ignored. In fact, blog copy is one of the most important types of content for businesses. Here’s why blogging is important and what best practices to use.
Why blog Here are some blogging statistics
Blogging really pays off. Of all of your efforts (think of our discussion on the bullseye marketing approach), content marketing (i.e. blogging is part of it) will often get the most ROI. Content marketing keeps your audience interested, it builds brand awareness, generates leads, and leads to direct sales.
- 72% of marketers say blogging increases engagement, according to the content marketing institute.
- HubSpot finds that corporate websites that blog have 434% more indexed pages in search engines than those that do not blog.
- 66% of people use blogs to make business-to-business purchasing decisions.
- Business-to-business marketers use blogs to generate 67% more leads than non-bloggers.
- Those who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to get a positive ROI.
- Content marketing has lower up-front costs and better long-term benefits than paid search.
- 70-80% of searchers focus on organic results versus paid ads.
- Blogs were ranked as the fifth most trusted source of accurate information.
- Companies that blog more perform better – those who blog 16 or more times a month generate 4.5 times the traffic of those who post 0-4 monthly posts. And the total number of blog posts is exponentially helping your business generate leads over time.
- 60% of consumers enjoy reading corporate blogs from brands they like.
- 90% of users find custom content helpful and useful.
It’s obvious that people like company blogs and it’s a useful part of your overall marketing strategy.
What is the purpose of blogging?
Blogging creates trust and brand awareness. Blog content is there to train prospects and customers on a regular basis, to help them and guide them to your product or service as a solution for them.
Overall, businesses that blog get 97% more inbound links to their websites for your business than those who don’t blog. Since inbound links not only help ensure your website is found, but Google also rates you as credible and trustworthy and increases domain authority, this is an overall net positive for your business.
In addition, blogs can help you get to the first page on Google, which is important as many users (75%) don’t go past the first page of the SERP.
One of the best reasons to blog is that content marketing generates three times more leads and costs 62% less than traditional outbound marketing methods.
Blogging can be an upfront expense, but it can work while you’re asleep. You could make 100 calls a day hoping 3% of those leads will be converted into customers, or you could passively gain followers, build your brand awareness, be considered an industry expert, and help potential customers with your content – all because they are reading your blog. You may have hundreds of people reading a blog post, some sharing it on social media, others being able to subscribe to your blog or email list, others may be confident enough to buy a product – one way or another A way for people to interact with your brand. The nature of the blog post can help turn prospects into real customers.
What should I write about?
You want to write the content that not only engages your readers (your customer personas) but also answers their questions. Your blog shouldn’t be a platform for showing how great you are as a company. You can be very good, but if you don’t show how you can help your reader achieve their goal, solve their problem, or make their life more interesting, you’re not giving them value.
Good blog content should added value to your reader as he – hopefully – solves his problem or helps him on the path to solving his problem. Maybe you’re a bakery targeting kids’ parties and birthday cakes. A dad whose kid’s birthday is in a month’s time has a job bake a cake for his son’s birthday and came across your blog How to Bake a Cake for a Three Year Old’s Party. They give full instructions and advice on how to bake a Spiderman cupcake tower, but at the end they also say that ordering a custom cake from you will save you time and effort (if not money), freeing dad on your pricing options click, you live in his neighborhood, the prices are reasonable, and now you have a customer. If you deliver a great product that day, that customer may also order a cake for their mom’s upcoming 70th birthday party.
So the bottom line is that you should write content that relates to your company, but is also helpful to your readers and (possibly) leads them to trust your brand and buy your product or service.
Blogging Best Practices
Here are some best practices to get you started.
- Write long content. The average Google first page result is around 1,890 words. Long posts generate more conversions – up to 9 times more leads than short posts.
- Answer questions your customers are looking for; What are the pain points of your buyer persona? Find out their pain points and answer their questions.
- Use long-tail and short-tail keywords to make sure you’re ready for voice search. Optimizing your content for different keywords will increase your chances of being found and indexed on Google. And if Google finds you particularly helpful on a particular topic, your rankings go up.
- Check out what your blog looks like on mobile. Make sure your blog is also optimized for mobile devices as many readers read on their phones.
- Make your blog content skimming-friendly. 43% of readers skim blog posts looking for the important “answers” to their question. So use headers, videos, and graphics to help readers understand your words.
- Reuse content: You can turn an idea into a video, social media post, blog, content download, infographic, meme, and more.
- Write content for each stage of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, decision.
- Awareness phase Blogs are blogs about helpful content that your reader wants to know. The content does not have to be specific to your company’s services. For example, if you’re a hairdresser, you could simply write on “10 Easy Hairstyles For The Office” to get your reader interested in your brand. You will not be trying to sell your own in-house shampoo at this point. They only write the content to be helpful. you can Ask them to subscribe to your blog. You want to ask them for a simple action in the next step that isn’t costs them all.
- Viewing phase Blogs are blogs that you establish as a trustworthy brand. You want your readers to know that Your Products or services can help resolve their pain point, but it’s still not difficult to sell. Hopefully at this stage you have something Information about that customer – for example, an email address – and you start turning them into a lead (a buyer). This phase is the longest in the funnel and you have a lot of work to do to convince this customer that you are the right company to solve their problem. Would you like to find out in the salon example whether you suffer from a dry scalp? Do you have a product that can help you? In that case, you may have five blogs on “How to Treat a Dry Scalp” and you will bring your product to these customers.
- Decision phase Blogs are rather difficult to sell (but not too hard – blogging is not a selling tactic as such). At this stage, you are definitely pushing your product as an answer. The customer has likely compared many different shampoo products and you want to show them why yours solves their problem. You might want to show them customer testimonials with the salon sample to convince that prospect that you are the one for them. Other ways to entice customers at this stage are free trials or samples – anything to convince the customer to buy your product or service – but in a way that makes them happy.
Now that you know what types of content to write, who to write to, and what to say, what are you waiting for? Start with your blog. You’ll be glad you did.
Do you need content writing services or do you want to set up your blog?
62% of companies outsource their content marketing. Almost every company believes that blogging is great value for money that generates ROI and gives you insight into your customer base. If you’re unsure where to start and want advice on generating ideas for your blog or getting started, get in touch.