It wasn’t so long ago that any brand without a blog on its website was losing out in the digital marketing stakes. With today’s emphasis on social media and cross-channel marketing, you need to ensure your company blog is still delivering engaging content and hasn’t fallen by the wayside.
Company blogs often fall into one of two traps. Some blogs experience an initial burst of enthusiasm and content publishing, then start to languish – usually through the lack of a content strategy or content plan. Others become a home to opinion pieces written by the CEO and CMO, who may not be the best content writers, or simply serve up lengthy updates about a company’s products and services.
Read our guide to creating an editorial calendar for content marketing.
Yet company blogs remain a valuable marketing tool for businesses. Done well, they can provide relevant content, useful advice and inspirational stories that underpin your brand values and connect with customers. If your company blog is looking a little unloved, here are five ways to keep it fresh.
1. Reinvest in your company blog
It’s easy for a company blog to get stale over time but as a vital part of your overall marketing mix, it pays to periodically review and monitor its impact. Schedule a quarterly review of its performance and ideally get customer feedback as to how useful and relevant it is. Think about updating its design – such as integrating it further with community or social media activity – and spruce up your company blog with professional photos and illustrations. Remember to check your site speed, mobile optimisation and keyword density to ensure it’s performing well.
2. Think about your audience – and blog for them
Customers should be the main focus of any content your create for your company blog. Blogs are the perfect way to start a conversation with your audience and an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, brand values and customer understanding. Take time to brainstorm what customers want and need? What advice can you give and what customer problems need solving? Share your expertise with helpful guides and tips to help you build a reputation as a brand that customers can trust. Creating problem-solving evergreen content is a good way to ensure your blog performs well in search and winning customers organically over the long term.
3. Create long form blog posts
At one time 500-700 words was seen as the perfect length for standard blog posts but recently longer articles have been gaining traction. Long-form content – articles that are at least 1,000-2,000 words – have been shown to deliver better SEO results. While it takes more time and investment, long form content has the advantages of better visibility and scope for you to build your brand and customer community by demonstrating your company’s expertise. Go into detail, and structure content so it’s easily navigable and accessible. Consider breaking important points into lists and tables – and add helpful, relevant links throughout the copy. Be careful to create blog posts that are easy for readers to scan so that they can quickly find what they’re looking. Section text appropriately and use headers and bold text to help readers identify sections.
4. Think video
With billions of videos viewed on YouTube each day and nearly 80% of UK adults watching Youtube videos each month – it’s no surprise that your business should consider adding video to your blog. Video tutorials works well for many small business blogs – such as tutorials on how to replace a car part if your business is a garage, or how to prune a hedge if you run a gardening business. These can be easily shared on YouTube to increase traffic to your company website.
5. Don’t forget SEO
Search engine optimization is important for business blogs. SEO is a constantly evolving metric so it’s vital to keep up to date with what’s new. If you can’t afford to hire an SEO expert, think about getting some SEO training or do your own research by following top SEO blogs. The best approach is to use a tool such as Google Analytics and webmaster tools to monitor your website activity. What blogs are the most popular? Which ones had the lowest bounce and saw customers willing to link to other parts of your website? Experiment with different approaches, such as calls to action or topics, and see which ones increase traffic and conversion.
With some planning and a content marketing strategy in place, company blogs are a fantastic way for people to find out more about your business without the hard sell. They can communicate your brand values simply by the type of content you choose and how you deliver it. Putting your audience first, and creating content that’s relevant to them will see your blog perform better.
Lynn Wright
Lynn leads the SEO content strategy and wider content teams at Submerge, developing effective content for B2B and B2C brands across websites, digital PR and social media channels.
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