Blogging has drastically changed in the last few years and has emerged as the main driving force behind Content Marketing. If you’ve just started your website and have gone through the beginning steps to picking out the domain, choosing a scalable web hosting solution and finally launched —it is now time to focus on building your company’s professional blog. Regardless of what industry or niche you fall under launching and building a professional blog is integral to your business’ long-term success.
In part 1 of this article, we’re going to outline the beginner knowledge you need to launch and build your professional blog.
Content:
- The Importance of a Professional Blog for Online Businesses
- How Blogging Affects SEO Ranking
- Why Blogging is the Driving Force of your Content Marketing Strategy
- Steps to take to Blog Well
- Rules of Blog Writing you need to follow
Even if you’ve been blogging for some time and it just hasn’t been the success you’d hope for this article can help shed some light on ways to adjust your strategy. Let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
The Importance of a Professional Blogging
The onset of blogging was specifically geared towards people sharing their day to day lives with their audience. However, with the launch of Social Media Titans like Facebook in 2004, users began using such platforms to share photos and quick blurbs about their day instead. Social Media changed the way blogging was viewed and used.
Today there are over 400 million blogs in existence. Now blogging is used as a tool to give valuable information to end users and help solve their problems. Content is king among marketing strategies so blogging should be your business’ top priority.
Not convinced yet? Check out the stats:
- 53% of online businesses and marketers say that blogging is their top content marketing priority. Blogging benefits your brand’s awareness, lead generation, SEO and so much more.
- In 2017, 66% of marketers relied on using blogs in their Social Media content. Your blog post’s value does not end after publishing. It can be used as a lead generation tool to drive more traffic to your website and on social media.
- 75% of B2B marketers used blogging in their social media content than 61% of B2C markets. So if you are in the B2B niche you better believe your competition is using blogs in their social media strategy.
- 94% of people share blog posts because they find it helpful and want to help others. This is good news for you and your business and how well written blog posts that solve a problem or helps your audience will increase your business’ reach.
- Top ranking blog content on Google search results has an average word count of 1,140 – 1,285. Having high-quality blog content can increase your index and search result ranking on major search engines like Google. Driving more organic traffic to your website.
The above blogging statistics are on the tip of the iceberg where benefits are concerned about your business. Though, it gives you a great idea of how beneficial blogging can be for your business and how it can help build your brand awareness, professional reputation while driving traffic to your website. Let’s talk about one of the best ways to drive that traffic.
How Blogging Affects SEO Ranking
Just so we’re on the same page SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. As we’ve mentioned above, creating in-depth quality content in the form of blog posts can greatly improve your SEO ranking.
Every day new blogs are birthed and as more blogs become live, the SEO game has become increasingly more competitive. The crux, how do you keep up with the competition? By focusing on creating and writing compelling content more consistently.
Search engines like Google absolutely love content that is in-depth, full of visual content and provides end users with solutions. Focus your content marketing strategy on creating content that meets these standards and your SEO ranking will continue to climb up the ranks.
Why Blogging is the Driving Force of Your Content Marketing
As mentioned earlier blogging is the king of content. Every business that hopes to be successful in the long term, has an amazing brand awareness, be labelled as an authority in their field and have a high ROI should have a content marketing strategy. But what exactly is Content Marketing?
The Content Marketing Institute defines Content Marketing as:
… a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Simply put it is a strategy designed for producing content on a consistent basis to drive traffic that converts. Above all other forms of content, blogging does this best. There are over 40 types of content you can use in your marketing strategy but blogging is one that has the greatest reach. So how do you create valuable, engaging and captivating content that keeps your audience coming back for more and help turn a profit?
Let’s go deeper into the answer.
3 Steps to Blogging Well
Blogging and doing it at an expert level is the only way you are going to rise on the ranks of search engines like Google and generate the kind of traffic that leads to high ROI. So how do you make blogging work for your content marketing strategy and your business? By following these 3 rules.
1. Blog regularly and consistently
Keep the focus on writing compelling content on a consistent basis— consistency is the name of the game if you hope to have success with your content marketing strategy and blogging. Writing 1 or 2 remarkable posts in a sea of lacklustre posts will not cut it. Understand that blogging is a competitive market and so you have to stand out from your competition. Short blog posts of 800 words or less will not cut it. You want to put time and energy into writing long-form blog posts that are packed with in-depth knowledge and stunning visual content. This is the kind of quality Google looks for when putting your content at the forefront of the competition in Search Results. Make this the focal part of your strategy.
2. Promote Your Content
Once you’ve invested the creative juice, time and effort into creating dazzling content it’s time to get it to your audience. The promotion also takes a lot of investment and should be done properly. Use tools at your disposal like Social Media Marketing, and Google Ads to get the word out. In part two we go deeper into promoting your content and driving traffic to your website.
Put energy into Monetisation last
Once you’ve grown your audience you want to then focus on monetisation. Though you can do this while growing your audience but you want to implement the right strategy. We break down the best way to monetise a blog in this post however if your business is product oriented then use your blog to help sell your products and services.
Structuring Your Professional Blog Posts
The rules of structured blog posts are pretty simple and should be used by anyone serious about creating stellar content. The Rules of good blog writing you need to follow:
1. Use the 3rd Person:
Depending on your company’s brand you want to use ‘we’ and ‘our’ and always refer to your audience in the 3rd person singular ‘you’. If your blog represents your personal brand then use ‘I’. Keep it conversational. Using ‘you’ to refer to your audience makes them feel that you are speaking to them specifically and it is more effective from a copy-editing perspective.
2. Have 3 Sections:
Your blog post structure should have a logical 3 section format. Introduction, Body and Conclusion. Most readers skim blog posts first to get the general gist of what the article is about before diving in. Your body should have clearly defined Subheadings that lend to the overall message of the posts. Always have a clear conclusion that either leads to a call-to-action or asks a question. Final thoughts work well too.
3. Use Short Paragraphs:
Remember most users read blog posts on their mobile devices. You want to keep the paragraphs short and use a variety of lengths. Don’t be afraid to use 1 sentence paragraphs either. Breaking it up makes your content more digestible to the reader.
4. Use facts, data and statistics from reputable sources:
Make sure you link back to these.
5. Use great visual content:
This point cannot stress this enough. High-quality content includes great visuals.
6. Have a great headline:
Most users decide on clicking a blog post based on the heading. Keep it simple but make sure it fully addresses the problem the blog post intends to solve.
7. Aim for content that is 1000-2000 words:
Google prefers ranking quality content that is on average 1,890 words on page 1 of search results. Keep in mind that, this number differs based on the discipline you fall in. A rule of thumb here is ‘quality’ and not quantity, if what you need said can be said in fewer words, then say it. Though putting more relevant, well-researched articles before your blog followers works wonders in keeping them engaged. This shows that your content is of high quality and that you’re an authority in your industry.
Conclusion
By now you should have a better understanding of why building a professional blog for your business is crucial to its success. In part 2 we go beyond blog content creation and dive into increasing your blog output, generating blog ideas and traffic and much more.
What are your thoughts on blogging for your business now? Are you reading to get started? Get your free consultation and publish your professional blog today.
