Learning how to write a business blog can be stressful and can put many off trying it. The benefits are numerous though, especially with increasing brand awareness, your presence online, and driving potential customers to your website.
With all of these advantages, improving your blog writing skills is an essential part of your digital marketing toolkit. Whatever industry you’re in, your potential customers will be online. Whether you have a physical shop or are based remotely, you will achieve more through a successful blog post rather than avoiding the practice entirely.
So then, the question remains. How do you write an effective business blog? The tips below will get you well on your way to accomplishing this goal.
How to identify your clients’ interests and questions
First of all, you need to consider what questions your clients will be asking. For example, if you are a coffee machine manufacturer, a relevant question might be: ‘How to grind coffee beans?’.
When they put this in Google, and you have a blog post titled this, they will come across your blog post. As you can see, this question has been asked many times by blogs for businesses working in the coffee industry. Within that post, you can then explain a little about coffee beans and methods for grinding them, and then at the end have a short blurb that says ‘If you want to save time, why not try our coffee machine? We will do all the grinding for you!’.
This blog post answers a question relevant to their potential customer, provides value and education for them, and plugs their product at the end. With the customer already on the website and seeing all the company’s branding, they are increasing brand exposure and beginning to build that relationship. Even if they don’t purchase the product straight away, that PC has moved a step closer on their customer journey towards purchasing and becoming a valued customer.
Keyword research – should I bother?
Keywords for blogs and higher SEO scores are celebrated as being essential to the bones of your post. However, competition for keywords is higher than ever, especially with the use of automated SEO optimisers built into websites. This means that using keyword research as the basis of your SEO strategy is pretty much pointless – you will just be swallowed up into the overcrowded sea of people who are doing the exact same thing.
For example, if the aforementioned business wanted to use ‘coffee machine’ as their keyword, a quick Google search yields 1.26 billion results.
Therefore, you should definitely acknowledge a keyword or phrase and weave it throughout your post, but don’t make it the be all and end all. There are several other things that are important to consider when it comes to SEO for blogs:
- Effective title
- Inbound and outbound links
- Word length
- Images
How should I title my business blog post?
Deciding on a title is a little bit like when you buy the best Christmas present ever, but you need to wrap it perfectly or it won’t give the greatest impression. However, at this Christmas party, any presents that haven’t been wrapped with perfect creases and adorned with bows won’t get opened and will be left to rot in a corner where no one will open them. This is why your title is important – it’s a first impression, and it needs to be a good one.
Make it snappy. Have a guideline of no more than 9 words or it won’t show up well in search results or be quick enough to read. Try asking a question – ‘Where can I find quality auditors?’. People input questions into search engines frequently, so when they see this title they will know that the answer is in the article. Use numbers – ‘5 ways to…’ ‘13 top tips for…’. These are a great way of peaking interest. Splitting up your information into numerical steps also makes it much easier to read. Have a play, and come up with something both creative and practical.
Why do I need inbound and outbound links?
Linking out to higher ranking pages improves the quality of your page, in regards to your SEO score. Linking-in also directs traffic to other areas of your website, which can increase the value the PC gets from your website, as well as direct them to a sale. Link, link, link!
Ideal word length for a business blog post
There are a lot of numbers floating about on this one, but there are a few things people can agree on.
- A post should be no less than 600 words. To provide valuable content, which will also be calculated as valuable by search engines, this minimum needs to be reached.
- Shorter blog posts do best when shared on social media, so you should try to keep these between 600 and 750 words.
- Longer more journalistic blog posts can be up to 1,500 words.
Images – how do I use them?
Images are great to break up big chunks of text. Every few paragraphs you should try to use an image – these should be relevant visual aids to your text. Don’t forget to ad alt text to your images too, and make sure it describes both the image and what it’s explaining to your audience. For example, with if it’s of a coffee bean the alt text might be ‘coffee bean how to grind’. This links the image to the purpose of the blog post and will improve the post’s overall SEO score.
What now?
Go forth, and write! Remember the tips mentioned above, and start growing your presence online.
Our blog post section on support.jomo247.com provides information created by our mentors, for you. We provide Quality Management software on www.jomo247.com, and our aim is to create an online high street for quality auditors and coaches through our support site to encourage discussion and growth.
The mentors who write their blog posts for us get support through the process of writing effective business blogs. If you’re interested in what being a mentor is, find out more here.
