How writing blog content can help your business
Writing blog content for your business is can greatly help your brand to be found by others online. Although, when you don’t have experience generating blog content you may have trouble knowing where to start. In this training document we will discuss what a blog is, what you can write about, how to compose a blog post, and why blog post will help your marketing!
What is a blog post?
A blog post is a article or written content that you create for your website or blogsite. Blog post typically convey information that is associated with a specific topic that can be related to a product, service, organizations, or general information. Blog post all have different purposes. For example, a blog post can exist to inform members about company news or a blog post can be promotional in nature and let customers know about an upcoming product release.
Blog post are some of the most diverse forms of digital content and they are familiar to most web users. Anyone visiting your web store may want to read your blog posts to learn more about your brand, products, or services.
What to write about
If you are excited to start generating blog posts but do not know what to write about consider starting with one of the following general topics:
Business information and news – Connect with your customers, fans, and shoppers with general information about your business. This blog post can speak about your small businesses aspirations, core values, owners, direction and much more! Customers are more trusting of brands that are transparent and share with them information about the direction of the company or brand.
You can also let customers know about company news like new shipping destinations, new product releases, or any events.
Promotions – Customers are usually most interested in how they can save money shopping on your website. Launching promotions on your blog is a great way to let people know. This tactic can also let your customers know they need to follow your blog to stay updated on the best and current promotions.
Informative Content (great for Google!) – Googles search engine in 2021 is driven by informative content. More specifically, matching a Google users search intent to the informative content. So, how can your blog take advantage of this and target these customers? You simply write a blog post about your products, product categories or what you think your customers may be searching for. Here is a simple example:
Your website sells decorative birdhouses. They are pretty popular but you don’t feel you get enough sales. A blog post tactic is writing an informative post about decorative birdhouse that will rank on Google. The post could be titled “Top 10 reasons to buy a decorative birdhouse”
Creating a blog that is informative and follows specific Google formatting factors will greatly increase the chance of Google users searching for “decorative birdhouses” finding your website and birdhouse products!
Blog formatting
Blog posts need structure. It is never optimal to write a blog in a continuous stream of consciousness. Blogs need to be formatted for readability and searchability (ability for Google’s search algorithm to scrape you blog effectively)
Here is the formatting that you should stick to for your blog posts:
Headline – This is the title of your blog! This is what the blog will be about and what people will see first. Always make sure your headline is relevant.
Introduction – Introduce to the reader what they are going to be reading. Typical “tell you what I am going to tell you” style.
Main content – Your main content will house all of the blog information.
Subheading (bullets, bolded text, etc) – Break up your blog into different sub-headings so the blog is easier to read and it flows.
Numbered lists – Lists are great for getting recognized on Google. Number your lists and provide value adding information.
Media – Your media can be images, videos or even .gif
Conclusion – Tell the reader what you told them.
Clear call to action – A call to action is what desired action you would like for the reader to take next. This can be whatever you want but make sure to make it appropriate for the blog post content.
Linking – You can link externally or internally. Just make sure that the link isn’t spammy and relevant to your content.
How do blogs help you get more customers?
A well written blog post is never a waste of time or money. Blogs can help you connect with existing customers, build trust, and bring in brand new users. Here are a few of the main ways blogging will help your online business:
Website traffic – For everyone with an online business ‘web traffic’ is the holy grail. The more potential customers you have visiting your website, the better chance you have to make sales. Blog post that are well written and formatted properly can rank high on Google and get you traffic to your website. For example, you may be selling a product that is in an extremely competitive space. The more competitive a product or service is, the more difficult it will be to rank on Google. That is where you blog post can skip the proverbial ranking line and go right to the front generating you lots of traffic for the lifetime of your blog post.
Great advertising – Blog posts allow you to market your product or service over a series of post or articles as opposed to the traditional ‘buy now’ method. Blogs allow you to write in detail about your marketing promotion so consumers can really grasp why this is a great promotion for them.
Build a community – Some of the largest online communities in the world are blogs or started as a blog. When you create blog content on a regular basis you inadvertently create a community of readers. You can allow comments to see how your readers are reacting to your blog content. Some websites even take things a step further and create an online forum for their readers to connect with each other, share stories, or information.
