Are you happy with your business blog? Perhaps it is ticking along nicely since launching, generating a handful of social shares and the occasional comment (which of course, you take the time to respond to thoughtfully). So you now have buy-in from the board, who have been converted from somewhat cynical (‘But will this blog actually make us any money?’) to loosen the purse strings enough to help you get a dedicated blog team in place and a steady stream of content flowing.
But with the board now wanting to see exactly what ROI their investment is generating, the pressure is on to really deliver. Read on for six advanced blog tactics that will take your blog from almost zero to marketing hero.
1. Get clever with keywords
One of the most effective ways to beef up SEO is to create your own media content for your blog. Use your own original images and video wherever possible, rather than relying on stock images. Your readers might link to your blog which will result in more exposure if your images are linked to and embedded elsewhere on the interweb. Second clever SEO tip: aim to pepper keywords liberally into your captions, descriptions and image titles. This is especially important for images, as it’ll help your blog to rank higher in results when people are searching images rather than text.
2. Showcase your personality
As important as it is to be informative, your blog also serves as one of the faces of your brand. These days, consumers like to know the face or faces behind a business. Try to inject some colour and personality while still keeping it professional. Blog writing is different to straightforward journalism or news reporting, so don’t refrain from polishing your content up with opinions and anecdotes to help it shine.
3. You can promote without promoting
The sooner you realise that people are reading your blog to get answers to questions and solve problems rather than to check out your business, the sooner you will start to grow an audience. The trick is to publish content that is always informative and at times entertaining – that will position your company as an industry leader and voice of expertise that just happens to offer the apt product or service to help solve your readers’ problem or accomplish their goals.
4. You’re not a blogger, you are a publisher
A great tip from the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, Michael Stelzner, is to stop calling your blog a blog. He rather refers to Social Media Examiner as an online magazine, which conjures up the idea of rich, educational articles. Moreover, Stelzner claims that by thinking of yourself as a publisher rather than a blogger, you can make clearer business and editorial decisions.
5. Each blog post is a product
When the quality of posts on the Buffer blog started to decline, the Buffer team sat down to rethink its blogging strategy. The result of this critical brainstorm? Each article must be treated as a product – that is to always convey something that people want or need, and to be good enough that people would potentially pay for it. Follow this criteria for every blog post you publish, and you’ll be surprised at just how much quality improves followed by better traffic and engagement results.
6. Only publish your very best content
Your blog posts should contain the kind of content that you would normally charge your clients £1,000 for. It may sound crazy. Why would you give away the expertise that generally makes you your hard-earned crust? A blog is a showcase of your unique knowledge and skills, letting potential clients and customers know that you are the only expert they need. Nobody is going to steal your advice and run – they will more likely come back for more. So don’t be afraid to give away the advice that you would otherwise make money from, think of it instead as a worthwhile investment in the future of your business.
Are you ready to take your corporate blog to the next level? If you want to learn how to gain the most traction from your content in order to generate measurable results, call us on 020 7395 1522
