It’s simple to build a blog, but to build a successful business blog with a significant level of traffic sustained over the long-term to achieve measurable results – now that’s a challenge.
Yet with 57% of companies running a business blog having acquired a customer through their blog, it clearly is possible (source: Hubspot 2012). So how is it done? At the heart of every successful business blog lies excellent content. There’s no disputing the fact that it is content that paves the way for customers to find you easily online, and from there to build a useful dialogue based on trust which, properly nurtured, should ultimately foster long-term profitable relationships.
There’s an art to ensuring that your content is discovered by the right audience online, and SEO is the route to achieving high rankings.
In this post we share the SEO tactics that we have observed first-hand increase the visibility of blog posts.
1. Keyword research
Set down your dictionary and thesaurus. The essential reference tool when blogging for business is a keyword list which identifies precisely which topics and keywords you or your writer/s should construct posts around.
A good starting point when determining your keyword list is to ask yourself: “What would my ideal reader type into Google to find my blog?”
Firm up your gut instincts by conducting keyword research using a tool such as Google’s Keyword Tool. Simply type in a word or phrase you think relates well to your content plan and the tool generates a list of recommended results. Pay attention to metrics like search volumes and competitiveness of terms.
Bonus tip: As a rule, aim to limit keywords or phrases to three words or less.
2. Keyword placement
Once you’ve determined your keywords and phrases, sprinkle them into your blog content. If you’re writing a post on house fire statistics and neglect to include the words ‘house’ ‘fire’ and ‘statistics’, Google is clearly going to have to work extra hard to display your post on ‘house fire statistic’-related searches. Aim to use keywords in blog post titles or headers, opening paragraphs and elsewhere when relevant, always avoid adding them for the sake of it (otherwise known as ‘keyword stuffing’, a practise frowned upon and penalised by the search engines).
Bonus tip : Aim for a keyword density of 5-7%. So, if you write a 100 word post, use your keyword between five and seven times.
3. Editorial schedule
The good news is that search engine crawlers regularly check up on websites to index new content. The bad news? If there’s no new content, you miss out. Don’t let Google or your readers down by making the effort to regularly and consistently publish new blog posts. The more you do so, the more frequently those crawlers will keep returning to your site and, hey presto, your search rankings and hence traffic should increase incrementally.
Create a content calendar which sets out exactly which days you will be posting on which topics, focused on particular keywords.
Bonus tip: Early mornings from Monday through to Thursday have been proven to be the most productive times to publish new content.
4. Quality control
You don’t need to have the writing skills of Shakespeare to blog for business – in fact readers prefer to get their information fast than to trawl through reams of text – but copy should always use correct spelling and grammar.
You might want to develop an official writing style guide, particularly if there are to be multiple people writing for your blog. Consistency of style, tone and content is critical when trying to optimise for certain terms. Some businesses opt to outsource content writing to maintain standards, or alternatively hire a copy editor to review all content before publication.
Bonus tip: Whatever path you take, remember that one pair of eyes , however scrupulous, will never be sufficient to spot every typo.
5. Blog formatting
The humble blog post can take many shapes and forms, so try to map out guidelines for content formatting to maintain that all-important consistency we keep mentioning.
Determine whether you want your blog to incorporate images, headers, sub-headers or links (highly recommended), and exactly which keywords or phrases are to be included in each of these. Lastly, ensure you communicate this information to everybody involved in creating the blog, from copywriters to copy editors and guest bloggers.
Bonus tip: Keywords used in blog titles will also appear in the title tag of your URL, like this: http://www.blogstar.co.uk/3-highly-effective-blog-marketing-strategies/ – although Google cuts off titles that run over 79 characters, including spaces.
Follow the SEO tips above and your blog’s visibility in the search engines should quickly start to improve. But if you only take one thing away from this post, make it to never compromise the quality of your content for the sake of rankings – blog content should always be useful and informative, ideally solving a problem for your reader each and every time they visit.
