Sunday, September 18, 2016

5 Point Guide to Blogging for Small Businesses

Blogging has hence, once again, gained importance and reinstated its position as the best marketing tool. In order to make your blog effective and successful, we are detailing five essential items you have to incorporate to make your business blog a success.

Blogging as a business is hard. However, the importance of blogging cannot be undermined, as it is one the most traffic-boosting, lead generating, and bottom line focused content-driven platform. For businesses, this means day after day, week after week, post after post, they have to continuously keep blogging to see some real-life positive returns. This may appear rather arduous to small companies, as running an effective blog requires a substantial amount of time, resources, and a well-executed strategy.

A lot of people may talk in favor of spending their resources on garnering audiences on social media platforms, as the organic reach on social platforms at one time was very high. You could get a large audience on extremely cost-effective budgets. However, over a period of time, we have to remind ourselves that these platforms are severely limiting the reach of your posts. The organic reach has decreased to a point where, without paid advertisement, it is practically impossible to get a good following, or for that matter, for a post to even reach all of your enrolled followers. This, quite frankly, is happening across all social media platforms. Moreover, 57% of Facebook users say they never click on Facebook ads or sponsored content.

Blogging has hence, once again, gained importance and reinstated its position as the best marketing tool. In order to make your blog effective and successful, we are detailing five essential items you have to incorporate to make your business blog a success.

Have a Blog on Your Own Website:

Having a blog on your own website, as opposed to a free wordpressor blogspot domain, definitely creates more authority. Post your blog on your own website. Remember, you have no control over the changes that occur onother websites orsocial media platforms. However, on your own website, you have all of the control. It is also estimated that a website with itsown blog gets 434% more indexed pages, which is a great tool for site optimization as well.

Research Your Content

There is a plethora of information on the Internet today. In order for your blog to really grab attention, research the content you put on it so that it creates value for the reader and they keep coming back. Listening to customers is a greatway to learn what content users areseeking. Paying attention to the questions asked on the blogs and forums is another way to gain insight about potential topics you might want to cover on your blogs. Research areas around your product, audience, and keywords, to see what popular topics have been covered to get ideas and if there is any way you can add more value or an alternate perspective.

Use Rich Visual Content

It has been proven over and over again that content-rich visuals last longer in your mind. Posts that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts. Visuals are effective because they help convey information swiftly and they make content more understandable. It is ideal to use photographs you clicked on yourself, or created on apps, although,it is advised to stay clear of obvious stock photos.

Share your Blog on other Platforms:

Once you have posted your blog, share your direct links on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, etc., and then let your content grow an organic audience. Share your content on other blogging platforms, but remember that Google penalizes for duplication, but you are allowed to attribute where the post was originally published. Make sure you get dofollow link backs to your blog from other platforms.

Build Trust:

Use your blog to communicate with your target audience and engage with them. It is a very good medium to expose your expertise, create credibility, and build your brand.  Tell your company story and the people behind it. People tend to trust and relate more to a company if they have a visual personality they can connect with.  Blog about things your customers would like to know if they met you in person. Get them involved in the company culture by blogging product updates, customer reviews, discussing ideas, industry news, trends, processes, and behind the scenes. It is estimated that information on qualityhigh-traffic blogs is trusted by 81% of consumers.  If you have been featured in other blogs, written guest posts, or have been featured in a new piece, put that on your blog as it immediately boosts authenticity.


Source: 5 Point Guide to Blogging for Small Businesses

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