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Blog writing is tough. Well, let us rephrase⏤GOOD blog writing is tough. Anyone who has time can throw words down on a page. But, it takes effort and persistence to learn how to create incredible content for your audience while also leveraging the dreaded Google algorithm. If you’ve started a blog and have yet to see your efforts rewarded, don’t shut it down just yet! Check out these seven tips our marketing agency has put together to help your blog generate site traffic and quality leads.
Tip #1 – Know Who You’re Writing For
If you don’t know who you’re writing your blog post for, it will lack direction. Hopefully, you have a couple buyer personas to focus on, but if not, don’t worry. Try and think about your ideal customers. What are their problems, gripes, and struggles? How can you help them?
Also, consider what area of the marketing funnel they are in. Are they just discovering your brand? Have they already purchased your product or service? Answering these questions can help you create an effective call-to-action (CTA).
For example, if you’re writing for someone who is just discovering your brand, they may not want to jump in and buy what you’re selling immediately. Instead, you can direct them to sign up for your newsletter to get more information, or perhaps you can direct them to another blog for more details. Once they’ve moved further down the marketing funnel and are ready to make a purchase, you can create posts centred around a purchase CTA.
Your customers need to be told what to do, so don’t be shy! Do it like this:
Want more great tips from a professional marketing agency? Sign up for our newsletter! Really, go ahead and do it.
Tip #2 – Write in Conversational English
You’re not writing your Master’s thesis here. You’re writing for people, so it’s important to sound like one! Excessive jargon, or writing with a sesquipedalian style doesn’t work. You probably read “sesquipedalian” and thought, “What does that mean?”⏤which is exactly our point.
If you were to speak with a customer in person, how would you talk to them? That’s how your blog should sound. Write in conversational English and use simple sentences when possible. Trust us, your customers will thank you.
Tip #3 – Create Content for Both People and Google
While you should write in conversational English, it’s also important to write with SEO in mind. Use heading tags properly, integrate keywords or keyword phrases (words that someone would type into the Google search bar to find you), and give your images alt-text within your blog post. This way, Google is able to recognize what your post is about, and match it to your customer’s search queries.
SEO is a mix of art and science. One of the factors that Google uses to determine whether a webpage is a quality page is how long people spend on it. Do people bounce almost immediately? Or are people spending some quality time on a page? If it’s the latter, Google thinks it must be good! This leads us into our next tip.
Tip #4 – Make Your Blog Engaging
So, how do you keep people on your page longer? Make it engaging! Post pictures (remember to give them some alt-text) and give those pictures written captions. Pictures with written captions are some of the most read parts of a blog.
Use bold font to show what’s important and you can also use italics to show someone’s thoughts or for emphasis. Right now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, this blog is so helpful! I wish I knew more about this marketing agency.
See?
Tip #5 – Post Content Consistently
Doing content marketing, like producing blogs, is key to driving visitors to your site, and converting them into leads. Content marketing is also much cheaper than other traditional forms of marketing. It’s a win-win situation! But, if you have a blog, it needs to be nurtured and posts should be uploaded on a consistent basis.
Publishing more content to your website means you’re delivering more value. If you give more value to people, they will be more likely to become your customers.
If you wish to publish content on a regular basis, you may encounter problems like running out of ideas or staying on schedule.
When you first started your blog, you probably had a ton of ideas. But, as time went on, you began struggling to come up with topics. In this case, there are a bunch of online tools available to help you get your creative juices flowing. You can also make it a practice to remember who you’re writing for and what troubles they have, and then solve them. See if people are writing reviews for similar products on Amazon. If you notice any negative patterns, write a blog addressing their concerns and how your product solves them. Boom! Great content created.
To keep yourself on schedule, create an editorial calendar. Our marketing agency produces an editorial calendar for each of our clients that show what we’re posting, when we’re posting it, and why. It’s an indispensable tool!
Tip #6 – Promote Your Content After Publishing
You might think your work is done after you hit publish. But, you’d be wrong.
You just spend a bunch of time creating a sweet blog, so put some time into promoting it! Share it on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn) and add it to your newsletter. You can also find a relevant subreddit and post it there, or on Medium. Find a Quora thread where you can post your blog as an answer. There are many aggregate sites out there where you can promote your blog.
Find out where your customers are, and get your content in front of them!
Tip #7 – Look Back and See What’s Working
Once you’ve created, published, and promoted your content, it’s time to see what’s working.
Sometimes you’ll be surprised to find that a super simple blog is outperforming all the other posts that you poured your soul into! But don’t cry, this is great insight because you’re discovering what’s resonating with your audience.
Look for patterns, and try to promote similar content. You can also start re-mixing your top-performing content. Turn your blog into an infographic, then turn it into a video. Format it into a downloadable PDF for people to print off. There’s so much potential when it comes to your blog!
Having trouble running your business while also keeping your blog up-to-date? Don’t have time to build a proper content marketing strategy? Our full-service digital marketing agency can help. Give us a call at 604.559.7509 or stop by our office located at 240, 515 West Pender St. in beautiful Vancouver, BC.
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