CONTENT STRATEGY:

Business blogging strategy – 20 steps to a better blog

by Ross Furlong
@BlogstarUK

Have you pondered improving the blog for your business but not known quite where to start?

53% of marketers see blog creation as their main priority 

Statistics consistently highlight the tremendous value marketers place on business blogging. Indeed 53% of inbound marketers in a HubSpot survey consider blog creation their main priority.  This is testament to the effect blogging can have on bottom line business growth as an integral part of an inbound marketing strategy. Some 3,000,000 searches are performed on Google every day. People are actively seeking out information about products and services. To put it simply, the more quality content you create, the higher your chances of capturing some of those searches.

A business blog is one of the most cost-effective and lucrative ways to get more content on your website so ponder no more, because here is your 20-step action plan to launching, maintaining and optimising your blog:

STRATEGY

1. Develop a coherent strategy before starting to blog for business. This should encompass which platform to use, what content to write, how often and which social media channels to use.

2. Create an editorial strategy which sets out exactly what content will be published when, in line with other online and offline marketing activity.

3. Decide whether to delegate somebody in-house to write blogs, outsource content writing or perhaps combine the two.

4. Always try to maintain a consistent tone of voice and style to impart your blog with its own unique style and character.

QUALITY & QUANTITY

5. Ensure a regular flow of blog content. There is no magic number as to how often to blog, but posts should ideally be published on the same day or days and at approximately the same time each week.

6. Never prioritise quantity over quality. Each business blog should be interesting, relevant or informative, but preferably all three.

7. Carry out thorough keyword research to determine which keywords and phrases will guarantee you better visibility in the search engines.

8. Never resort to keyword stuffing to try and boost search rankings. The quality of content will suffer and readers will be deterred.

9. Get to know the most popular business blogs within your niche and others. What is it about them that attracts and retains such a broad, high quality audience?

ENGAGE

10. Use social media buttons to encourage readers to share their favourite posts and drive further traffic to your website.

11. Invite comments on your blog by including direct, clear calls to action within or at the end of each post.

12. Always interact with your community by taking the time to respond to any comments posted on blogs.

13. Determine your customers’ and potential customers’ most prevalent problem/s and position yourself as the resource that solves it/them.

14. Use your customer emails, Quora, Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers as well as relevant forums to establish exactly what your prospects need to know right now, and answer this in blog posts.

BLOG DESIGN

15. Include an ‘About Us’ section in your blog to add a human touch and a more tangible level of engagement with your audience.

16. Invest in attractive and user-friendly blog design. Online audiences have a vast array of business blogs to choose from, and making yours visually appealing could separate it from the competition.

17. Good blog design also means making it easy for visitors to navigate your site and find what they are looking for. This means tagging and categorising content, using tag clouds, and offering a search bar.

18. Be original when it comes to delivering content. Article style posts should always offer valuable information and advice, but adding images, video and audio will attract and engage audiences even further.

19. Aim to extend the conversation offline. It’s great to engage your audience so that they are posting comments or connecting with you on other social channels, but the ultimate goal is to get them to pick up the phone to call you or, even better, arrange a face-to-face meeting.

PERSIST

20. Don’t give up. We know how hard it is to keep generating ideas, let alone find the time to execute them into well-written blogs. Employ your best, most enthusiastic in-house writers or consider outsourcing content to breathe new life into a languishing blog.

Over to you

Let us know what stage of the action plan you’re finding most challenging in the comments below and we’ll be happy to offer some impartial advice.