Engage with your visitors by creating a blog
Why you should be blogging
So, you have created a great-looking website for your business, you have outsourced all of the tasks that can potentially be outsourced, you have AdWords in place and you have placed some banner adverts on other people’s websites. What more can you do to drive additional visitors to your website? Have you thought about content marketing?
Content marketing is all about creating great content on your website that attracts visitors and hopefully scores you new customers. An easy way to get started with content marketing is to implement a blog on your site. A blog is simply a way that you can add various articles to your website where you write content about topics that would be of interest to your existing visitors or potential new corporate customers.
So Where Should I Start?
Content marketing and blogging are all about building authority. You need to write about things that you know and topics that you are passionate about. You want to create an environment whereby users come to your site when they are looking for information on your topic. Here is how you should potentially get started.
- You need to do some brainstorming around your website topic and come up with a long list of blog titles. If you run an accounting practice then the list may be around tax tips, bookkeeping issues, accounting packages, etc. Try to think of topics that you know a lot about.
- It may well be that you can’t think of too many topics off the top of your head. My suggestion would be to carry a notepad around with you and add ideas to the notepad when they come to you. You might be surprised at when and where these ideas spring to mind.
- Once you have your list of ideas you need to think about the structure of your blog. Group your ideas into topic areas to make it easier for your readers. Again, if you are an accountant you may have a topic area for personal tax, one for business tax, and another one for regulatory issues. Think logically about how your readers will navigate around your site.
- Now that you have your structure in place you can start to organise writing your blogs. Try to keep the blogs interesting and relevant to the topic. If you are not an expert within the field then it might be an idea to do a bit of research into the topic area before writing.
- While there is no set length that you should be aiming for I would suggest targeting at least 500 words for your first few blogs. 500 is a good number to get across a relatively simple concept and also shows Google that you are putting in some effort. For a more complex blog topic, I would aim for 1,000 plus words.
- For some topics, it might be an idea to get a guest blogger to do some writing for you. Lots of people are happy to write content in exchange for a link back to their site and a bit of free advertising. Just make sure that the writers that you choose know how to write and can do a decent job.
By creating new blog posts you create new opportunities for your website to be found by Google and new opportunities for customers to find you.
I’m having trouble getting started
While you want your blogs to be quality blogs it is sometimes better to simply jump in and start writing. Once you have written a couple send them out to your friends and relatives to proofread them for you and to give you some feedback.
How often should I write?
I would suggest starting off writing weekly and then trying to increase the volume from there. As mentioned above, it can be beneficial to get guest writers to also write content for your site.
Will anyone read them?
If you write good content and structure the blogs well then Google will index the pages and include them in the rankings. Hopefully, after a period of time, you will build up some regular readers as well as viewers who find you on Google.
Is it really worth all of the effort?
When done properly, content marketing can drive significant numbers of customers to your site. Publishing well-thought-out blogs is a great way to get started with your content marketing.
