Blogging Tips for Business to Increase Traffic
This article covers some easy-to-apply blogging tips for business. In the digital age where everyone is awash in a sea of content, it’s harder than ever to stay on people’s radar as a business.
There are so many interruption-based marketing channels and strategies now that there’s serious competition when it comes to trying to snag a new customer during their buying process. After all, what makes you stand out when they’re already being bombarded with marketing content and sales messages?
One drastic mode of attack to deal with this is to simply be everywhere in a concept known as business omnipresence. When someone is in the market for something which you provide, you naturally want your business to be the first they think of. Customers are paying attention to a multitude of mediums, so why shouldn’t you make yourself known in all of them, maximizing the chances of converting them when the time comes?
One way of beginning to tackle this is through content marketing and blogging for your website.
Content Marketing for a Business Blog
Content marketing, which provides a constant flow of value and acts as a show of your business’s authority when it comes to whatever topics the content is being made on, is a great way to dominate the public’s perception of your business and target area.
It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll have experienced this effect plenty of times yourself, googling some practical query and landing on an article written by a company that offers relevant products or services. A search for dealing with anxiety, for example, could lead to an article written by the European health store brand Holland & Barrett on solutions such as breathing methods, or, more pertinently, the use of herbal remedies and products… which they also just so happen to sell.
Well-written evergreen (content that won’t become dated, like news) articles like those will continue to work for you for years, providing long-term value for both you and your customers, though it will have to be tweaked and updated occasionally in the interests of SEO if nothing else.
Blog Content Strategy
The most important part of a content marketing strategy is keyword research. Content must be optimized with keyword clusters targeted at the kind of people you want to keep visiting your website.
It goes without saying that all content should be high quality and engaging so that once people click they’re inclined to stay, but getting people to click your blog through the search engines in the first place will largely come down to keywords and SEO.
Focus on keywords with lower competition from the perspective of the website authority of your competitors. There’s a huge variety of software and free, freemium, or premium tools available to help with this research and analysis process, such as SEMRush or Ahrefs.
How to Find Topics to Write About
The hardest part of writing for beginners and experts alike is often coming up with ideas. Instead of suffering and wasting time trying to come up with something completely fresh, it can be very effective to study the competition, see what they’re doing, and do it better.
In the world of content marketing, completely original content is rare. Using SEO and auditing tools like BuzzSumo and SemRush can help you see what’s working for other big sites, what kind of content is drawing the most clicks, etc, and then you can re-create them for your own website, making them more exciting, up-to-date, in-depth, or offering a different perspective.
We’re not suggesting plagiarism, but heavy inspiration is very much allowed!
You Will Improve
Keep in mind that all skills related to producing successful content are learnable, creative writing especially so. The most important trait is consistency – keep producing content. Practice makes perfect, and your storytelling abilities will improve over time. Even the best of writers likely cringe now when they look back at their early work, so don’t give up.
Outsource Your Writing
If you just haven’t got an interest in writing your own pages for whatever reason, or perhaps if you are producing content but need more, or even if you just want some variety or specialist knowledge from an external source, it may be time to think about finding a contributing writer.
There’s a wealth of writers out there which cater to every niche, work on every schedule, and fit a wide range of budgets, so they can really ease the burden of content production no matter what your circumstances are.
Where to Find Contributing Writers
Once your website authority gets a domain rating of around 30, you’ll get a steady stream of writers reaching out to you and offering free content. Quality can be variable, but the higher your domain rating, the better the writers that approach you will be.
Other than that, there are loads of freelancing sites like Fiverr, Upwork, Problogger, etc. Heck, if you’re particularly budget-strapped and willing to take a gamble, you could even try finding someone through Reddit’s Slave Labor subreddit where people offer all sorts of services for below-market rates.
No matter who you come across, ask to see previous examples of their work before taking them on. The biggest challenge we face (and which you no doubt will too) is finding people who are not only knowledgeable about relevant topics, but have the writing chops to get that knowledge across in an interesting and readable way.
For example, when we get guest post offers, they almost always fall into one of two categories: either it’s a competent writer who doesn’t know the topic well enough, or it’s an expert who has difficulty creating readable content. Our industry sector mostly has engineers and scientists who are logical and a bit “no-nonsense” or straight-talking, which works great for their main occupations, but means they can have trouble writing in a more creative, entertaining way.
How Often Should You Post?
Here at Out of the Box Innovations, we publish once or twice a week.
We have a fixed goal of publishing one cornerstone piece per month. This will be an in-depth piece and helps us with long-term traffic growth. Next on the list are general events, news, guest posts, and employee-created content which we publish organically as it happens.
We believe creativity can’t be forced, so we don’t push anyone to a strict schedule. A forced plan will result in sub-par content, especially if work gets particularly busy and the time our employees can devote to writing gets cut.
However, you need to find what works for you depending on the strengths of your writers and your practical business needs. Rockcontent.com says that “there’s actually a confirmed sweet spot when it comes to posting frequency.
Most experts agree that blogging two to four times per week is the best way to see increased traction from your content.
This equates to somewhere around eleven to sixteen posts a month, depending on how set you are on the actual times per week you post new content.”
So that’s something to keep in mind, but they do also note that those in specific competitive niches may need to push themselves even harder and try to get 4-6 posts out a week.
Blogging Tips for Business: Takeaway
Content marketing and blogging is undeniably an invaluable tool to have to keep your site high in the rankings and cultivate an authoritative, trustworthy brand image. There are tons of guides and sources of inspiration for a successful blog out there, you just need to get googling! If you’d like more in-depth or personalized help though, or if you’d like a shortcut to finding some writers, Out of the Box Innovations offers SEO-supercharged copywriting, ghostwriting, and marketing consultation, amongst other things. Get in touch with us now to start transforming your online presence through the power of content marketing!
