Blog Page
purpose / Objective
The core goals of a Blog page are to:
Provide knowledge to an audience – people (much like yourself) will search the internet to find answers for things they want to know. Your blog can be a great way of providing information on relevant topics to your target audience. If the reader is happy with what they learn from you, they may continue to come to you as an leading authority in a particular field.
Increase traffic to your website and build engagement – blogs are a great way to build an online community and help to build the tone of your brand. Much like social media platforms, if a viewer likes the way you tell a story / the imagery you use, they will subscribe to be alerted of when new blogs are released and continue to engage with your website. The more the person returns, the more clicks are attributed to your website, the higher your website will rank, the more leads you will create.
So how does this affect your lead generation?
Let’s say you are a mindset coach and you want to attract people to your website who want to improve their mindset.
Your blog post could enable your business to rank on Google for people who search the term “mindset”. When someone searches for how to improve their “mindset” and comes across your blog post on “3 ways to improve your mindset”, they not only find your blog but they now have access to the rest of your website. From not knowing who you were, they can now explore your website and learn all about you and what you offer. They might click on your “Products” or “Services” pages after they read your post, and take a look at what you sell, essentially becoming a new lead.
Is ranking guarenteed?
To consider how your company can rank on search engines via a blog, we’ll start with an example – let’s say your a new business with very little online presence.
You decide to spend the first year writing and posting regular blog content that strongly relates to a particular topic. Over time, your traffic increases and other companies even start to link to your site for information regarding your topic. When this happens, Google recognizes your company as a legitimate source for web design information. Eventually (with a lot of trial and error), your blog posts begin ranking on page one of Google for specific terms you have regularly used in your blogs that people are clicking on.
Then, one day, you search one of those terms (e.g. “mindset coach in X city”) and find your business website is now on page one. This is likely due, in large part, to your consistent blogging efforts.
How To Start A Blog
Summary
Your “Blog” consists of a general Blog page and a series of individual blog posts.
Blog Page
This is a collection of all of your posts. When someone clicks here they can see your entire collection and then select the secific post they want to read. Users can narrow down your search posts by tags, categories or even dates.
Blog Posts
Your individual posts are single pages that contain either information, stories or both. There is a particular structure that you can follow to help you make sure the posts are interesting and easy to digest.
Blog Style
Depending on your brand, you can name/refer to your blogs as “blogs,” “articles,” “musings” – anything you like that suits your business.
Your blog style will be aligned to your brand. For example, if your brand relates to food, then your blog may consist of a combination of food recipes; exploring ingredients; talking about hot new restaurants. Where as if your brand is a business coach then your blogs may consist of how to’s; a day in the life; recommendations etc.
Click here to access a PDF guide on how to write a blog post depending on the style.
It covers:
- How to
- What is
- Infographic
- List
- Newsjacking
- Pillar
Process
Follow this outline.
1. Choose your target audience.
When you’re starting your own blog, it’s important to think of your target audience. Who are you creating the blog for? And who do you want reading your blog posts? Before you can get started, you have to consider the niche you’re writing about and what topics you’ll cover and why.
2. Brainstorm content ideas frequently based on your market segment.
Once you’ve started a blog, you’ll want to churn out high-quality, consistent content on a regular basis. This isn’t always easy. Creating content is a time-consuming task. You want to ensure your content is something your readers would be interested in and hopefully can help with your SEO — more on that in a minute.
To begin brainstorming content, consider what your competitors are doing. Look for gaps in their content that you can fulfill. Additionally, you should also do SEO research to verify that users are searching for and interested in the topic you want to write about. Tools like SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, and Answer The Public can help.
You’ll want to brainstorm content frequently so you always have ideas that you can execute.
3. Create a blog strategy and editorial calendar.
Just like creating a business, you can’t create a blog without a strategy in mind. Your strategy should answer questions like:
- Who are you targeting?
- What type of content will you produce?
- When will you post?
- Where will you promote your content?
Overall, you should have a mission, vision, and goals for your blog.
Then, create an editorial calendar to keep you organized and on track. A calendar will help you track what posts are coming up, ensure writers are meeting deadlines, and assure you have enough content ideas for the foreseeable future.
4. Pay attention to article structure.
When you’re writing your blog posts, it’s important to consider the article structure. For instance, are you using subheads to break up the post so it’s easy to digest? Are you using bullet points and images that make the post easy to scan? These are important factors that will help keep your reader on the page.
Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using calls-to-action (CTAs), that will guide the reader on what you want them to do next. This is how you can start making money and generating leads from your blog.
5. Prioritise marketing and promoting your blog.
Another element of blogging is marketing and promoting your blog posts. It’s like the age-old adage — “When a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Consequently, if you write a blog post but nobody reads it, will it have a positive impact on your company or brand? Probably not. That’s why you’ll have to market your posts. You can use social media, SEO, your website, or your email newsletter to reach current and potential customers.
6. Learn about SEO.
You want people to read your blog posts. One way to do that is to get organic traffic through SEO (covered in a future topic). If you want your blog to be successful, learn how to research keywords, how to rank in search engines, and how to build an SEO strategy.
7. Use a variety of blog post styles.
Your blog posts should be interesting to everyone who reads them, and especially for customers who read every single post. For those that are active followers and ambassadors of your blog, you should use a variety of blog post styles so your blog doesn’t get stale. Consider using how-to posts, list-based posts, or thought leadership.
Click here to access a PDF guide on how to write a blog post depending on the style.
8. Repurpose old content.
Producing blog content consistently can be hard. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you write a blog post. You can update old blog posts to keep them accurate and comprehensive. Additionally, you can use other content of yours, perhaps a YouTube video or a podcast, and repurpose the content into a blog post.
9. Perform a competitive analysis.
To understand your audience, run a competitive analysis on your top blog competitors. This will help you identify trends, uncover gaps in the content in your industry, and give you ideas on topics and ways to promote your blog.
Running a competitive analysis will help you build and iterate on your own blog strategy.