By Susan Tucker
Have you noticed how every brand from Apple to Zillow seems to have a blog these days? I’ll bet you’ve started wondering if blogging is right for you? Or maybe you’ve dabbled in the idea of blogging for business but haven’t quite figured it out yet.
As a small business owner you may be intimidated by the thought of adding what seems like just more work to your already full schedule by managing a blog. The fact is having an online presence with a blog is a very important and effective marketing approach and way to grow your business.
In fact, it can be said that having a business blog is vital to growing any business today. We are in the Age of the Customer, with so many advancements in technology, the ball of consumerism is in the hands of the buyers. They are looking to research your business, look for tips and keep up to date on current trends that are relevant and helpful to them so they can make an informed decision when choosing to do business with you.
When you think like a publisher, you are building trust with your prospects.
There is no special formula to drive traffic to your business blog that automatically turns customers into buyers. However, there is a combination of tools that you can utilize as part of your marketing approach in your blog to achieve the results you want with time. Having a blog can be essential to growing your business, whether you are an experienced blogger or new to blogging.
Here are some super-easy blogging tips for growing businesses in any industry:
- Create a Content Calendar by mapping through your year. What is happening in your industry? What is seasonally relevant? Where do you have a natural ebb and flow of business? Think about these things when you are creating your blogging calendar.
- Content Relevance is a fundamental part of your SEO, it will improve your blogs visibility and when well written correctly it allows search engines to easily find you and rank you higher on the list.
- Be a News Source to your customers, they do not like to being sold something all the time. It helps to share information significant to your industry and offer helpful tips and advice whether there is a sale or not, this builds trust.
- Create a Google Alert using keywords relevant to your industry and post topics around topical happenings.
- Formatting for the 2-second scan is an important step. Bullet points, headers, sub-headers and images make it easy for busy folks to scan for the important info you are giving them.
- Fill Your Blog Bank with a variety of post styles: bulleted lists, product and book reviews, photos and captions, videos, how-to posts, interviews and anything else you think your customers would like to see.
- Be Consistent, having a solid online business presence will ultimately help give you added high-quality leads in your sales funnel.
- Visuals are Awesome for attracting new visitors. Use micro-videos such as Vine and Instagram in your posts to highlight a point and always include an image.
- Solicit Guest Posts for a variety of voices that could appeal to different customers.
- Don’t forget your CTA! Adding a call-to-action in each post is key for growing your business online. Connect it to a Landing Page and start building up your list for your lead nurturing sequence.
Once you have gotten into the groove of publishing regular posts (16-20 per month is a good goal to have), you can start repurposing content. Take a series of blog posts and turn them into an ebook. Use concepts from previous posts to create a video series or SlideShare presentation. Share and re-share your content on all your social channels using different lead-ins. Be sure to think about your Buyer Persona and don’t be afraid to experiment!
With a little planning, blogging can be super-easy for your growing business! What tips do YOU have? Please share them below.
