By Elin Enrooth
No matter what industry your business is in, your website probably needs a blog. Depending on what you do, your blog could be titled “Tips”, “Insights”, or “Resources”, as long as it serves as an area of your site dedicated to content creation.
Content marketing includes social media, videos, newsletters, podcasts, infographics, webinars, and more.
Content marketing isn’t about your brand, products, or services. It’s about benefiting your audience and what they care about.
The goal of content marketing is to provide such good information to your readers that they become loyal customers.
Say you’re an interior decorator and you have a blog on your website where you share DIY projects, tips, and decorating ideas. This is a valuable resource that doesn’t have to do with convincing customers to hire you. For someone looking to decorate their home, this blog would be a very important resource and, as they become more invested, may lead to that reader hiring you.
Content marketing will help your brand become a credible resource on topics that matter to potential customers, making your site more likely to be discovered by the right audience, which will enable your brand to strengthen customer relationships, grow a larger subscriber base, and increase lead generation.
A blog can drive new traffic to your website only if you’re writing for the right audience. One way to learn how to write to your audience is to construct a persona, including their demographics and pain points. Once you know your audience, you can create content that will resonate and attract them to your website.
It’s important that your site is optimized for SEO, too. Before creating a post, research what your audience is searching for. Find highly-searched topics and keywords and include these in your title, body, and metadata for higher visibility.
After your post is published, promote it on all of your networks, including social media and email newsletters.
This can be as simple as two words, such as “Buy Now”, or a sentence or two and can either be hyperlinked text or a clickable button.
CTAs direct users through your website, keep them on your site longer, and guide them on their journey from awareness to purchase.
The CTA on a blog post can be used to move the visitor along to another relevant post on your website, to a products or services page, or to a form or contact page.
A blog is a great way for a small business to demonstrate expertise, communicate brand voice and message, and establish credibility.
The best small business blogs can answer potential customers' common questions and discuss industry trends. A blog with useful content shows your audience and customers that you are a trusted source.
Consider your blog as a way to start a dialogue with your audience. It’s a part of your site that is intended to help, engage, or educate users. This content is not brand-heavy.
Encourage readers to provide feedback and thoughts. Many blogs feature a comment section. Don’t be afraid to ask a direct question and see what your audience has to say. You never know when someone may have a great idea or suggestion for your brand.
Responding to readers allows you to directly engage with your audience and shows them that you care about their opinion, resulting in more loyal readers.
The more often you post new content, the more often search engines will crawl and index your website. If Google crawls your site more frequently, you’ll have a higher chance of seeing quicker changes to your search results ranking.
To increase the frequency that Google crawls your website, post high-quality content. If your posts are outdated, update older posts to alert Google to crawl and index your site.
Creating new content is also a good way to build natural backlinks to your site, which will, in turn, improve your search engine rankings.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of having a blog on your website is that it will continue to drive traffic for years to come. Unlike a social post, blog pages are ranked in search engines and can continue to be visited as long as they’re on the web.
Blogging can be highly beneficial, but only if you commit to maintaining it. Consider the benefits above and keep in mind that blogging is a long-term play. Hoist is a digital marketing agency that specializes in the home service industry.
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