Things you should know to create a successful business blog

upqode | May 2nd, 2018

Having a business blog is a must these days. Customers expect regular updates and entertaining information from businesses of all kinds. On the one hand, running a successful blog presents a huge challenge to businesses, but on the other hand, it’s also a wonderful way to attract new customers and build stable relationships.

It’s not hard to start a blog, but only a few businesses can claim that their blog is helping their business to attract customers. A blog is like a separate business – it’s a publishing platform, that has its own value in the eyes of the consumer, but it also serves business purposes and has a positive effect on the bottom line.

Here are some tips to take your blog from a boring read to a traffic attracting machine:

1. Find your niche

There are millions of blogs online and every day new blogs pop up. It’s a highly competitive market that is hard to break into unless you find a unique angle. To find your niche look into keywords and phrases people are searching for. You can also specialize in a specific type of business or geographical area. By specializing, you get ahead of your competitors and create an image of an expert in the field.

Specializing also makes work easier and more interesting for you as instead of covering broad topics you can perform deeper research, involve local community leaders, and develop unique rare content that the audience will appreciate.

2. Listen to your audience

So many businesses write their ideas and try to promote their products through blogs. But the success in blogging comes from understanding of your audience’s wants and needs. You must be aware of what your audience finds interesting and be prepared to deliver. Look into ways to build a community where you can source ideas. Make an effort to become a trusted expert in the community but always be open to new knowledge and ideas.

3. Involve employees

Your employees are the most knowledgeable people in the field that your business operates in so it’s only natural to rely on them for producing content. Make it easy for people to write and generate ideas. If one person from the team doesn’t contribute to your blog, have a conversation with them to understand the reasons. Most of the times employees simply don’t realize there is an opportunity to be creative within the company. Let them know that you’ll be happy for them to contribute and provide a couple of topic suggestions.

4. Have a publishing schedule

A business blog requires consistent effort and regular updates. When your business depends on your blog, it’s particularly important to follow the schedule. A strict schedule will help your SEO rankings too, as Google favors pages that publish regularly. Additionally, your readers will be pleased tremendously. When you publish every week, your readers will have something to look forward to and thus you can build long-lasting connections.

5. Include sharing links

It’s no secret that engagement makes content ten times more likely to be read. People want to not only scan the pieces you’ve written but also to learn the information for future use and share it with their peers. Having the option to leave a comment at the end of the post makes the readers feel cared for and also forces them to pay more attention to the content. Also, if you include social media sharing links you’ll automatically create more opportunities for content distribution.

6. Publish guest posts

Aside from social media sharing, another content distribution strategy is link building. Link building is the process of acquiring links from other sources. Link building can be done two ways: by publishing guest posts and by buying links or placing them in free directories. Guest posting boosts your SEO rankings, as Google considers blogs with a high number of backlinks influential in their field.

7. Have a strategy

There are many ways to promote your content and you probably won’t be able to use all of them due to time and budget constraints. That’s why you need a smart digital marketing strategy that takes into account all the factors relating to your business. Whether you are going to use the power of social media, diversify your income with affiliate marketing, build your email list, or create long-form content – it’s important to understand where you focus your efforts. Your strategy should take into account your target audience, competitors, and budget. Consultants from the digital marketing agency would help you to develop a successful strategy for your business.

8. Create great content

It’s easy to order articles in bulk but doesn’t expect them to attract the audience. If you really want to succeed with your blog, create the best content you can. Make a deliberate effort to produce high-quality posts no matter the obstacles. Approach your blog as a self-standing magazine. If you did own a magazine and your income depended on the number of loyal readers, you would have never allowed yourself to publish sub-par content. You must always strive to be the best in the field and beat all the competitors.

9. Have the drive to succeed

When all is said and done, only one thing matters – your passion to succeed. You might have a great strategy but if you don’t have the motivation to implement it, your blog will soon be forgotten. Having passion ensures two things: you’ll be persistent in your goals, and the quality of content will be better since you are genuinely concerned about producing valuable content.

10. Be prepared to put in hours

Taking a new blog from zero readers to 50 requires substantial effort and time. Sure, some blog posts might attract the attention instantly, but most of the times you’ll have to work harder than ever to acquire your first ten visitors. Many business owners forget that blogging isn’t just about publishing content – there are many other activities that blog owners end up being involved in: from networking and collaboration to community building and scientific research. All of these activities take time so be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do hard work.

11. Do your research

This point relates to creating the best content. Readers expect your content to be valuable. Incorporating well-researched information is the best way to create value. Make sure you include data, graphics, and links to trustworthy resources into your blog posts. Never publish anything that you can’t prove by data. You want readers to trust you and turn to your blog for expert tips and advice. Research keywords before you write. Often times, blog owners produce content that demonstrates their opinion but the content itself isn’t interesting to the audience. While a blog can be used to publish thought-provoking pieces, make sure the content is also interesting and engaging for your audience.

Final Word

Building a successful business blog is hard but not impossible. Produce great content, publish regularly, engage with your audience, and remain passionate about what you do. And in due time the success will come.

Any tips you can share on how to create a successful business blog?

Filed under: WordPress Marketing

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