Blogs are a great way to tell your story, talk about your offerings, communicate with your audience, and boost your brand and website awareness. In 2022 when customers are longing for authenticity, it’s important that if you’re thinking of or producing blog content that they are created for your audience, speak with confidence and authenticity. Blogs can also be a great SEO tool, as they introduce keywords that help your website get noticed.
According to Demand Metric, companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog. According to HubSpot, businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than businesses that don’t. Blogging should be a focus for small and medium-sized businesses as part of a content marketing strategy, and it’s a great way to create bonds, boost brand and website awareness and help establish trust.
If you are part of a team, produce content together as this can ensure that the content works to support the business at large, shares the workload as well as assist in areas to focus on. Yes, writing an effective blog can be time-consuming, but they don’t have to be a one-use item. Post them to your website, create a video version and post them to your social channels to get more bang for your buck. Blog content can also be turned into a podcast, and a guest blog spot can expose your brand to larger untapped audiences.
Blogs can work for you and your business long after they’re created, yes you might see a peak in traffic on day one, and that might be half on day two and again on day three, but your posts will be working for you in the background, bringing people to your website. Posting evergreen content that remains relevant helps continue traction long after the post goes live.
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The Jane Hayes Consulting blog:
Our Jane Hayes Consulting blog has been created as a resource to help SMEs navigate the sometimes confusing and complex digital and marketing landscape. When creating our content, we look at the trends or upcoming trends in the industry and write about them in digestible chunks in the hopes that it saves our community time in keeping up with the know. We aim for our blogs to be a resource our community can come to whenever they need it.
What To Consider When Creating A Blog:
Sometimes it can be hard to know where to start when looking to blog. Below we take you through some of the elements to think of when creating content.
1. Know your audience and write for them:
When writing a blog for your business, be sure you’re writing for your audience. For example, if you’re a retail brand and decide to write content on statistics, this would be off-putting for your audience and not for the brand. Say you’re a beauty brand, you could write about the trends in the sector and tips and tricks to looking after your skin; this could be connected to a season, how to hydrate your skin in winter. Create a resource that your viewers can rely on and come back to stay up to date.
2. Plan your content:
As with other aspects of content creation, plan your content. Look to the year ahead, the brand stories you have planned, and schedule blog posts around the theme. These could be collection launches, product promotions, or how-to pieces. Planning leads to less stress and more strategic content.
3. Choose a strong title:
A strong blog title is a must, as it helps draw the viewers’ attention. According to Oberlo, there are more than 600 million blogs online and over 1.7 billion websites; with this in mind, it is important that you gain interest in your brand musings through aspects such as a solid eye-catching title. According to HubSpot, it is recommended that your title be 60 characters in length. Headlines between 8 and 12 words are shared most often on Twitter. Headlines between 12 and 14 words are liked most often on Facebook.
Who Gives A Crap Blogs with brand personality.
4. Create engaging and constructive content:
Don’t write for the sake of it; if a brand you followed did this, would you engage? When writing your blog content, make it engaging, and infuse it with your brand personality like Who Gives A Crap does in theirs. Use your blog to help your customers, including tips, advice, and insight; in doing so, you will create a bond with your viewers, which can lead to sales and brand loyalty.
Source Orbit Media Studios.
5. Be mindful of your word count:
Don’t make it war and peace, but at the same time, don’t be too stringent when it comes to your count; it’s a balancing act. According to HubSpot, the ideal blog word count for SEO is 2,100-2,400 words, and the average blog is around 2,569 words. Be sure to fully flesh out all significant points to make your piece worth a read and to support brand trust but don’t go to painstaking lengths to extend your writing if it’s not required. Be sure to include keywords that relate to your post; this will help with SEO.
“40% of content marketers say original visuals, such as infographics, perform best in their articles. “Venngage
6. Make it visual:
Images are an important inclusion in blogs as they make the piece more visually appealing, support reach, and help drive points through. Reports say that the human brain processes visuals faster than text; research from MIT discovered that the human brain processes images in as little as 13 milliseconds, so use them strategically. Depending on your brand and offering, you can create your own images to include or use an image bank to ensure they abide by copyright. Make sure your images match the tone of the text, and your brand, as an ill-fitting image can put off a viewer and damage brand perception. Video content can also be a strong addition to your blog, as it can increase engagement.
7. Include a call to action:
When putting a blog together, be sure to include a call to action. This might be an encouragement to contact you, redirect to your social accounts, explore a new collection or answer questions. Above all else, make it easy for the viewer if you want to encourage them to make contact, hyperlink text, and feature email addresses and phone numbers. The best calls to action are clear, concise and have a sense of urgency.
Billboard talks about the music industry via their blog.
8. Stay on brand and be consistent:
It is important when writing your blog content that you stay on brand and be consistent. Use your brand voice, inject your brand personality, and use your brand colour scheme, as your posts are an extension of your brand. It can be detrimental to your brand to post haphazardly, so keep to a consistent schedule to ensure bonds are strengthened.
“Blogs can result in a 434% increase in indexed pages and a 97% increase in indexed links.” (DemandMetric)
9. Link it:
Firstly, let’s start by explaining what a backlink is. A backlink, also known as an inbound link, is a link from one page on a website to another; a backlink is a reference like a citation. A way you can get SEO traction with your blogs is by the inclusion of backlinks. Backlinks are links included in the text, such as references, quotes or statistics from other businesses that help create visibility for your website. Backlinks can be a vote of confidence in your business from one site to another; they signal to search engines that others vouch for your content.
10. SEO and meta descriptions:
A meta description is a small section of text, around 155 characters, which acts as a summary of the page’s content. These descriptions will appear on search engines when an individual searches for words or key phrases in the text. Be sure to optimise your descriptions to support your SEO. SEO is Search Engine optimisation, and it is about increasing the visibility of your website online. The more effective your SEO, the higher the chance of your brand capturing viewer interest and then leads, so be sure to think strategically and, if in need, hire an expert.
Expedia talks about travel and how-to’s on their blog.
11. Back up your claims with statistics:
If you make a claim in your blog, be sure to back it up with statistics. Statements without evidentiary support can make your brand seem untrustworthy and can be detrimental to your brand. There are many trustworthy statistics sites you can sign up for, including:
Industry Journals
Articles
Have a topic you would like us to delve into? Contact us via info@janehayesconsulting.com.au to let us know, and we will add it to our list. The purpose of our blogs is to be a resource to assist you with your business needs. We know there is a lot of content out there to read, and we try to cover all aspects of marketing a digital world in one place to make Jane Hayes Consulting a one-spot shop for advice and insight. We hope you’ve enjoyed our piece today and look forward to seeing you in a fortnight for our next instalment.
Need a blog created for your business? Jane Hayes Consulting can help; contact us via info@janehayesconsulting.com.au to discuss your business needs.
Jane Hayes Consulting, Leading You Through The Digital World:
Jane Hayes Consulting is an independent digital marketing agency founded to help businesses create consistent, creatively aligned, and strategic content. Jane Hayes Consulting can help you put your best foot forward with our expertly crafted team covering website design and building, marketing strategy, content creation, brand creation, and project management. Jane Hayes Consulting works within budget restraints and looks toward the future. Need assistance in developing your digital strategy and creating a business advantage? Contact Jane Hayes Consulting today and sign up for our newsletter.