In 2005 Bloomberg reported that ‘Blogs Will Change Your Business’. Was it so long ago? Well, they did and now we are well into a global online conversation with our customers.
According to HubSpot in 2012 “The facts speak for themselves. Marketing data clearly shows that blogging is a critical piece of the inbound marketing methodology and directly correlates to better business results. But merely blogging won’t dramatically transform your marketing. Your blog has to be well-optimized and promoted, and, most of all, rich with content. Frequency of blogging plays an important role in this equation, too. In fact, their research “Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses” shows that companies who blog 20 or more times in a month see the most return in traffic and leads.”
So there you have it. Who doesn’t want more inbound leads?
Shinesquad creates great blog content or shows you how to for successful results.
Here’s some tips for B2B or B2C blogging for business:
Blog more – the stats above show that blogging between 16 and 20 times a month is twice as effective as those who blog less than four times a month. But set your target – are you blogging for lead generation on a specific item, driving traffic to your corporate website (is your blog is attached to your domain?) or to position yourself as a thought leader, build a community and loyalty differentiated from your competitors? Blogging is great to achieve all those things and more.
Better Search Engine Optimisation – blogging means more indexed pages for search engines, particularly if you use industry keywords in your blog titles. Use the words your customers are searching for consistently throughout the blog. You can use long tail terms, that’s three or more words used for a specific search, that maybe you’ve missed on your website or that are new and specific in your industry. Target one keyword phrase for a month and see how your search ranking improves for that term. Search is customers looking for solutions to problems. Help them.
Getting leads – subscribers could be leads, but how do you know? Have a pop up box and ask if they’d like to be contacted about your business. There are plug-ins and widgets on free to use blog websites like the one we use here on wordpress.com.
Your Blog Personality – if you are a financial services firm and your customers value trust and competence – then write it up like that. If you are a design website and your customers want trends – then get ahead of the game in a quirky, visual blog. Why is your company different? Say why and consistently. Be authentic.
Editorial Calendar – Everyone says they don’t have enough material. You do. Publish and answer customer questions, comment on trends. It’s okay to talk a bit about your products, prices and give some exclusive tips on how to use them. Don’t over do it. Profile some of your people – remember – people buy from people. Offer opinions, new insights, advice and tips. There are a million stories out there, if you can’t find them invite guest bloggers, or use social media content service provider Shinesquad – identify your fans and get them doing some of the heavy lifting. Ask your readers – they might just tell you! Plan your posts – when are your readers there? You can pre program your blog posts so they are published at the right time to be read. Mix it up a little – long and short posts, photos and then measure engagement to work out what works best for your audience. Your dashboard will show when and from where a post was read.
Keep it up – if you had a blog and then it stopped I’m wondering if you’ve gone out of business and just look up your competitors.
Share it and get your readers to share too. You can link your blog to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook & Google+ – all over the place. On your email signature, a QR code on your business card. Be bold just like your blog.
Check out animation work we did for a client here https://vimeo.com/45508731
The Visual Web – A picture is worth a thousand words – people engage and interact with photos more than simple text. Fact. Same with video and animation – don’t be shy, it is an extremely valuable business tool that drives traffic to your site and influences purchase decisions. We make video and animation like this http://shinesquad.com/animation.html which you can use on your blog.
Blogs affect purchase decisions – just like magazines saying this is the latest or that’s cool. Enough of a critical mass and you are begging to be allowed to purchase something. Make it easy with phone numbers and contact details and how to buy.
No brand name – if the reader already knows your brand name they are going to find your website directly or through search. However, if they want to find your industry,service, what you are doing that’s new then a blog will populate search engines making it more likely your potential customer can find you.
Call To Action (CTA) – online speak for, so what am I supposed to do next? Download me now. Click here for better xyz. Use them in your text, sidebars, in banner adverts across the top. The customer is there and wants to know more, so get their contact details with a promise to find a solution.
Get your readers clicking on hypertext links (good for SEO) and keep them there (then they’re not at your competitor’s). If you want to give a higher value to the link then have it open in a new window, if not keep it in the blog so the reader stays with you.
Use tags to identify and organise the content.
Blogging is part of the social media global conversation so keep the style as if you were telling your news to a friend not as an email to strangers or a symposium presentation.
That’s enough for now. Please let me know if you found this post useful. See! I asked you…
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