Content writing, or content marketing is arguably one of the most important contributing factors to owning a successful small business. According to WordPress.com (a popular blogging platform), over 409 million people view blog posts every month – You read that right; over 409 million people every month!
Not to mention, more than 20 billion blog pages are viewed per month – It’s a great time to jump onboard for your small business’ ultimate success.
When it comes to your content marketing strategy, blogging can help your business grow. According to statistical research conducted by SemRush, blogging has become the most popular form of content produced by businesses in 2020 – all for good reason too!
Whether or not you’re an active business blogger, or you want to start a blog for your business soon – You’re headed in the right direction.
Here are 10 tips for making your small business’ blog a success!
- Post Consistently
There isn’t a set time frame, or number of times you should upload a post per week in order to make your business thrive, it’s down to you to set your business’ posting schedule.
The important thing to do is make sure you are posting regularly, so that your readers know when to expect a new blog post or article from you.
Depending on what your blogging goals are, your uploading frequency may differ slightly. Hubspot suggests that for smaller businesses trying to increase their brand awareness, posting 1-2 times a week is most beneficial for standing out in the digital crowd.
However, if you are more concerned about driving more active readers to your blogging site and want to see organic traffic flowing, then posting 3-4 times a week is optimal for your small business success.
Regardless of your blogging goals, posting regularly and staying consistent is key. You’ll be able to build a solid foundation for user interaction and people will keep returning to your site to read what you’ve got to say.
Read now: Why Creating Regular Content is Important for Your Business
- Stay Current & Relevant
It’s not rocket science as to why no one would want to read or subscribe to a blog with useless and outdated content; there’s no value in it for the reader, nor is there value in it for your small business as search engines aren’t going to pump articles that are irrelevant – sorry to say.
You might have noticed that when you type a specific enquiry or topic into google, older articles appear.
That’s not because google wants to offer you outdated information, it’s because the blog post or article has been updated by its writer to make sure that the content is still relevant and of value to readers.
When updating your old articles, remember to check all internal and external links you might have included in the blog post. By updating, you’re boosting your chances of ranking higher in organic searches, otherwise known as Search Engine optimisation (SEO).
Databox found that when they updated 24 of their old blog posts, they saw a 75% increase in website traffic.
Key tip: keep yourself up to date with Google’s Search Algorithm for the best ranking results on your new and old posts.
Read now: What is SEO?
- Spark Creativity
Creating an appealing blog is one thing, but to spark energy, creativity and excitement is another.
Whether your small business is focused on being categorically creative (DIY/art influenced) or not, you should still be able to incite a passion for creativity within your writing.
Perhaps you can offer a “how to” article for creating spreadsheets in relation to your accountancy business, or possibly, if you own a rental management business, you can offer some tips and tricks on what furniture pieces are in season for their rental.
People love to feel inspired. If your article is a hit, then it’s likely they’ll come back for more!
- Get Personal
It’s always a good idea to stay focused on writing around your small business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate person elements into your writing.
People love to feel involved in the story or part of the message that you’re trying to convey through its relatability factor; even if it’s only something small. For instance, the shared enjoyment of a nice warm morning coffee on the way to work.
Writing in a personal manner can really help your business score big. Often, we see businesses writing stale, dry and pushy blog posts about how their product or service is good enough for you to buy, don’t do that.
A blog post with a unique and personal spark of your own can help you build an engaging and sympathetic brand that stands out from the competition.
- Collaborate with Guests
If you’ve been a blog writer for some time now, you’ll know that the more you write sometimes can leave you feeling a little burned out and lost on where to take your content next.
Whether you need a break from writing, or you need some fresh content to spice up your everyday blog feel, it’s a great idea to collaborate or invite other writers to join in on your blog.
Having a guest writer can help your content to stay fresh and avoid feeling stale. New topics will arise and you as well as your readers will feel inspired from gaining a new perspective.
Not only should you invite guests within your industry to write for your blog, but also encourage them to sit with you for an interview. Using interview techniques, you’ll be able to relay your conversation in your next article.
It’s beneficial to mention that working with other content writers and industry leads can help draw attention and open up new reader audiences to your blog site.
- Use Imagery and Graphics
You might be past the stage of having to pick up a book with pictures on every page, but regardless of our age, reading is always better with imagery.
It’s rare to come across a blog without a single use of imagery somewhere on the page. One of the simple reasons for this is because people will spend the initial few seconds or minutes of their search scanning for articles that resonate with what they’re looking for.
Having great imagery and graphics can help sway a reader to stay on your page for longer, as they help to break up the bulk of written text as well as, add visual aid for a more personalised reader experience.
Imagery helps to draw attention and creates a story for readers. That’s why it’s essential to include on your blog page for the ultimate small business success.
Read now: 4 Reasons Why Graphics Are Vital to Your Digital Marketing Strategy
- Key Word Search
Before you begin to write an article for your business blog, make sure to ask yourself;
What are people searching for online?
It’s your job to make sure your articles are using relevant and specific keywords in order to score high in the search engine rankings. The higher your blog post scores, the better your chances are of someone reading it – this is where keyword research comes in.
Keyword research is the important process of finding out what popular keywords people are searching online, relating to your small business. For example, if “how to plan a wedding on a budget” is a popular search and you own an events management business, then consider writing an article titled “Budget Friendly Must Haves for Wedding Planning”.
Incorporate keywords into your article title as well as throughout the main body of your text. That way, search engines such as, Google, will have a clear understanding on what your article is about and will likely rank your post higher, so people can find it easier.
Read now: 5 Tips to Improve Your SEO Ranking
- Improve Readability
Before you click the publish button, make sure to proofread your article over and over. Bad spelling and grammar mistakes won’t look great on your part. It’ll damage your credibility as well as ruin your SEO because even search engines know what good writing looks like!
If you struggle to find spelling mistakes or catch errors in your writing, it could be a good idea to find a proofreader (a colleague or a friend) to make sure that your articles are error free and reader friendly.
Areas to improve readability:
- Add headlines and subheadings;
- Add bullet points and numbered lists;
- Utilise italics and bold font styles;
- Quotes;
- Links;
- Imagery;
- Reducing article length;
- Break up large paragraphs;
- Reformat the layout, etc.
For a follow up suggestion, once you hit that publish button, make sure to use analytical website metric tools, such as Google Analytics, to analyse how much time users spend on your blog page. This will help you to understand if your blog had good retention time and should follow a similar approach for future posts.
- Make Interaction Easy
Subscribe and Follow
If you want people to keep coming back to read more of your articles, then make sure to place the follow/subscribe button in an easy place to find on your page. If you can, place multiple “follow” and “subscribe” badges all over your blog page so that they’re hard to miss.
Be aware that your readers may not want to make an account just to subscribe to your blog. Instead offer them alternative solutions such as, access to the RSS feed and post-by-email options.
Commenting
Ask people to comment on articles and encourage engagement wherever possible. Ask for feedback and respond to people’s questions and comments. People love to interact and they feel appreciated when you respond to them. Be sure to come across friendly and approachable in your writing style and in your responses to comments.
You may find that people don’t interact with your blog for many reasons. One of them being that commenting isn’t easy, there may be a complex and longwinded log in process in place before readers are able to interact, which could easily turn them away from getting involved in the online community.
The bottom line is to keep commenting an easy feature and build a welcoming community that your readers want to interact with, that way they’ll keep coming back to your blog site for more.
- Share and Promote Your Blog
Unfortunately, not every single one of your blog posts will rank high in the SEO ranking, so promoting your blog elsewhere could be extra beneficial to your small business.
Share any links to your blog publications elsewhere on your business’ social media pages, websites, email signatures and any regular newsletters you send out.
By sharing your blog to your current followers or customers, you’re encouraging people to click through to see what they could be missing out on and attract readers through a new window.
For more tips and tricks on how to improve your content marketing strategy, check out our other guides.
Alternatively, contact one of our team members at Floodmaker to see what content marketing services, we offer to help your business succeed.
Read now: 5 Simple Tips for an Effective Content Marketing Strategy.