Basics of Blogging: How to Blog to Increase Business
If you have a business blog, you’re probably wondering not only how to build an archive of useful information but how to blog to increase business. Pursuing visibility for your blog posts—that is, getting them seen—is the most important thing behind creating the content itself. But how do you do that?
Let’s break it down.
Find the right topic.
It’s important to blog about topics that are important to your audience. You may be supremely interested in the nerdy nitty-gritty details of your work but your audience only cares about how you’re going to help them solve a problem.
Know your target persona inside and out. When it comes to your area of expertise, what do they worry about every day? What nagging problem just won’t go away? Write about that. Keep your content “evergreen” (widely applicable with no relevancy expiration) so you can re-use your content over and over again.
Write a great headline.
Way more people will read your headline than the rest of your blog post. So put some time into crafting excellent headlines. Keep them simple, specific and emotional. Use numbers (especially odd numbers) to capture readers’ attention. Make sure it includes an SEO search phrase, or a “longtail keyword”.
I’m no SEO expert, but I do know that you can use Google itself to help you find phrases that people are searching for. Type the beginning of a phrase into the search bar and see how Google finishes it. Then use that phrase as part of your headline.
For instance, if you own a landscaping company, you’ll find that when you type “landscaping tips” into the search bar, one of Google’s suggestions is “landscaping tips to increase home value.” Now you have not only a topic idea but a phrase to work into the title of your post. If you title your post “5 Landscaping Tips to Increase Your Home Value Now,” your post is more likely to come up in Google searches and it will give readers a specific promise (“5 Tips”) and create urgency (“Now”).
Optimize your featured image.
In between your headline and the body text, put a big, emotionally relevant image. Why? Because an image tells a story. And storytelling is what relational marketing is all about.
Depending on which platform you’re using, you can also insert an SEO friendly caption and metadata so that your image is working behind the scenes to get your blog post in front of people.
And while you’re at it, make sure to create a separate Pinterest-sized graphic for the end of the blog post with ideal dimensions so it’s easily pinnable and encourages people to save it for later!
Make it digestible.
Now for the structure. The format of your post is up to you but however you organize it, make it scannable. A big block of text makes people’s eyes glaze over and will almost always equal a click away from your site.
Use clear separation between sets of ideas, whether it’s white space, bold headlines or images. Listicles are popular because they make information easy to scan and retain. Clear headers with short paragraphs and bullet points will make your post organized, clean and (your ultimate goal!) readable.
Short, sweet and accessible.
When it comes to content, less is more. Some marketers will argue that longer posts are always better. This is a tactic to use if your ultimate goal is to rank for SEO terms. In that case, shoot for 1,800 to 2,000 words per post.
This isn’t how I like to do my own marketing, though. My goal is to build relationships with people. And people have short attention spans. It’s counter-intuitive to me to write ridiculously long posts that no one has time to read. Instead, I like to keep them short and digestible so people will actually read and benefit from them. Make it your goal to write 800 words or less. Only 400 words? Perfect. Get to the point without filler or fluff.
Check your post anatomy.
Before you publish, do a quick check. Does your post have:
A captivating headline?
An emotionally relevant image?
A scannable structure?
Easy-to-digest content?
A reasonable number of words?
Then check these details:
Do you have a Pinterest-sized graphic? Is the “Pin It” button option turned on?
Do you have a prominent newsletter signup at the end of the post?
Do you have a button linking them to your Contact page or some sort of related call to action?
Keep them reading.
Finally, you can keep visitors reading by adding a “Read More” section at the bottom of your post linking them to posts on similar topics. Your goal is to give them more useful content and keep them from clicking away too soon.
Good luck with your posts! And, as always, drop me a line if you’d like to talk about blogging to increase business.
