Is blogging for your business something you might consider for your business or does it just feel like something else on your To Do List?
Blogging isn’t just for lifestyle bloggers or for recipe creation although I am constantly grateful to those who do spend their lives creating recipes that I can access when I don’t want to think about what to cook!
Building a business blog can be a deliberate strategy for driving traffic to your website, for building your credibility as an expert, for providing useful information to your target audience, and for supporting your social media efforts.
77% of Internet users report regularly reading blog posts, and people read blogs because they’re looking for solutions to the problems they have.
A blog is often one of the best formats to provide those kinds of solutions to people online—whether through written content, video or audio.
Around 50% of all successful companies leverage blogging for their content marketing with many of them saying that blogging generates the biggest return on investment of all their marketing activities.
A business blog can not only help you build your brand – it can help your target audience to get to know your brand better. You might help your target audience to solve their problem. You can create a relatable blog style that resonates with your target audience, that showcases you and your business like a real human and creates a way for people to get to know the people behind your business.
Once visitors arrive on your website they will most likely have a look around at what else you have got to offer – especially if your blog has resonated with them. With a clear call to action on your website alongside your blog, you can encourage visitors to book an appointment, make a call or download that freebie.
You will need to get your website set up to display your blogs and perhaps a blog summary page too and your web developer can assist with this. While she is doing that, you need to consider what it is you are going to write.
If you think you have nothing to write about, consider creating blogs around your Frequently Asked Questions. This creates useful information that can be referred to time and time again.
Creating a content schedule around 5 or 6 key themes can also help you find something to write about.
Keeping a note on your phone where you can list blog ideas can help when those ideas strike while you are waiting in line or when you have a conversation with a customer or client and it sparks an idea for a blog. Perhaps they ask something that makes you think “hhhhmm I get asked that a lot – perhaps I could write a blog about that”.
Making time and committing to it regularly – whether that’s weekly, fortnightly or monthly is key to consistently producing content. No matter where you start, in 12 months’ time you will have at least some content that you can re-use and keep promoting to attract and serve your target audience.
A blog doesn’t have to be formal – use a style that is easy to read and appropriate for your industry, your business and your target audience.
Creating a blog isn’t a one-off activity. Once you have written your blog you can often find four or five small snippets of information coming out of that blog that can be utilised for your social media posts.
And a blog can also be updated if things change and then re-published and re-promoted to add even more value to your target audience.
Blogging can be addictive and great for your business! Even if you don’t consider yourself a great writer, there are lots of tools out there to help.
You can dictate your blog using something as simple as Office 365’s Word program. There are AI tools around that can identify key points around topics of interest and there are copy writers whose life purpose is to put your thoughts into words.
Getting started with a blog can seem daunting, but like anything, some practice and some guidance can get you a long way ahead. The payoff is in having content that you can continuously return to, increased traffic to your website, potentially better Google ranking through the use of strategic keywords, and stronger trust in your brand from your customers, clients and target audience.
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ARTICLE BY
Helen Sampson, Jagged Crow Creative
Jagged Crow Creative was founded by Helen Sampson in 2017, following a successful career in implementing human resources systems, project management and corporate leadership.
Passionate about your success. Driven to deliver results for your business. We are passionate about helping business owners connect with their ideal customers.
We help build brand loyalty using systems and tools designed to enable business owners to share their passion and products and do what they love most without adding to their to-do list.
We provide creative solutions to small to medium enterprises through effective web design, digital marketing, blogging, automation, email marketing and copywriting.
Specialties #Web Design #On-line Marketing #Blogging #Word Press # Project Delivery #Professional Writing #Business Strategy #Small scale farming