Blogging is one of the most valuable tools in your digital arsenal. It’s a way to demonstrate your thought leadership to potential customers by sharing rich, informative content while boosting your online presence. The more blogs you create, the more content Google has to index on your site.
If you combine your blogging strategy with some SEO, a little social promotion, and a few other techniques, your business will gain more attention in no time. The biggest problem for most small business leaders is figuring out how to get their blog off the ground in the first place.
How do you ensure that people want to read what you’re sharing on your website? What does it take to keep visitors coming back for more? Here are some low-cost tactics to get you started.
Write Valuable Content for All Stages of the Buyer Journey
There’s more to the average buyer journey than arriving on a blog post and immediately deciding to purchase a product. Your audience will want to learn as much as possible about your business, your product, and the benefits you can offer before handing over their cash.
To create an effective blog, you’ll need to establish a content strategy that encompasses all parts of the customer journey, from the moment when consumers first start recognizing a problem they need to solve, to conversion.
There are three stages of that journey, and your content strategy will include some of the following blogging strategies:
- For Awareness, create blog posts that address some common problems your audience has. For instance, if you’re a site selling digital marketing services, you might write a blog post listing the biggest issues people have with earning attention online.
- For Consideration, you’ll need to present your product as an effective solution for their problem. Case studies and interviews showcasing the results of happy customers are very useful here. So is any other content that demonstrates your unique selling points.
- For the Decision stage, you’ll need to overcome any concerns your potential customers still have about buying from you. Blog posts showcasing the greatest benefits of your product or service will be useful here. It is also a good idea to create how-to articles demonstrating how easy it is to use your product.
Since these stages educate your audience about a problem that your product or service solves and guide them towards a purchase, it is essential to produce suitable content for each of them.
Encourage Social Sharing
Once you have plenty of valuable content to share with your audience, the next step is increasing the reach of the posts you’ve created. If you already have a social presence, sharing your blog posts on social media is an excellent idea. For instance, you can promote quotes from your blog on Instagram with eye-catching visuals.
Alternatively, direct customers to your latest content on Facebook with promoted posts that include links back to your website. Remember, most social shares are more appealing when they include images, so make sure you have a featured picture on each post to grab attention.
Don’t forget to give your audience the power to share your content with their social connections too. At the bottom or side of your blog post, include sharing buttons that allow your audience to instantly share their favorite articles online. You might even add little “click to tweet” sections over some of the most quote-friendly parts of your copy.
Remember to avoid spamming your audience on social media with nothing but links to your latest content. Create a social strategy that combines blog promotion with meaningful insights, curated content from other companies, and more.
Promote Your Blogs Elsewhere
Social media is a great place to show off your content – but it’s far from the only option. If you have existing customers who signed up for a membership with your website after purchasing something in the past, keep them up to date with newsletters that showcase your latest blog content.
Don’t forget to encourage new customers to sign up for the same newsletter. Having a great email list is an excellent way to nurture leads that might not be ready to convert straight away. An email list can also turn one-off clients into repeat customers.
In addition to taking advantage of email, try sharing your blog posts as answers to questions on forum-based sites like Reddit and Quora. Just ensure that you’re not spamming links to your blogs on every topic.
If you’re responding to a question on a forum, start by giving an informative answer, then offer the link to your blog post as an additional source of information.
Have a Strategy for SEO
These days, if you want to run a successful online business, you need to know the basics of SEO. One of the easiest ways to help readers find your blog, and learn about your company, is to boost your presence on search engines like Google. If your customers find your website when they’re looking for solutions to specific problems, they’re more likely to interact with you.
Creating a distinctive online presence is particularly important for startups, since they need to establish themselves as thought leaders and demonstrate their expertise to get a part of the market.
When writing your blogs, think carefully about how you can implement elements of SEO without losing your unique voice.
Your posts need to include keywords, links, and other elements to capture the Google crawling bots’ attention. This will instantly improve your chances of getting the attention of new buyers.
However, don’t forget that, first and foremost, you’re writing for real human beings. Don’t let your quest to include keywords and other elements in your blogs leave them sounding spammy or inauthentic.
Collaborate with Other Content Creators
It can feel as though everyone in your industry is a competitor when you’re first trying to build a substantial presence in the digital world. However, there are some groups out there that could be valuable partners on the path to success.
When you’re just starting out, you can lean on collaborators to gain a share of their influence and boost your appearance on the web.
For instance, sending an influencer a freebie from your business and asking for a review in return is an easy way to attract new customers to your brand. The right influencer will showcase your company in a positive light and earn you traffic that you may never have found otherwise.
Also, try collaborating with other companies by guest blogging on sites that are relevant to your industry. Writing a unique article for another site gives you a chance to reach new customers. At the same time, the site that hosts your article gets access to fresh content that strengthens its position online. It’s a win-win!
Get Your Blog Off the Ground
Getting a blog to the point where it can generate some serious traffic and revenue takes time. You won’t achieve success overnight. However, you also don’t have to spend a fortune reaching your goals. Try some of the low-cost strategies mentioned above, and you will get your blog off the ground in no time.
