Brands that lead in their niches do two things:

First, they provide valuable content to their visitors.

Second, they prioritize relationships with their customers.

A very effective way they achieve both is by blogging. It is not surprising that brands who blog get 97% more links to their websites. Moreover, brands that blog receives 434% more indexed pages than those who don’t. This increases their ranking for search and they ultimately get more organic traffic.

Brands want new customers in addition to existing ones. A blog helps with that. The fact that blogs have been rated the 5th most trustworthy source for online information effectively positions a brand that blogs in the way of new customers. Expectedly, brands that blog regularly have 55% more visitors to their websites.

I can go on with the statistics to let you know why blogging for your business is highly beneficial. However, you need to know how to do it right.

Social Triggers revealed that most blogs receive less than 1000 visits a month. That’s disappointing. Below is everything you need to know about blogging for business.

Erm… wait.

Before you start a blog there are some questions you need to ask yourself. The answers are what will make your blogging venture a success.



Why do you want to start a blog?

This is the first question you need to answer. There must be an objective for this blog. If you start a blog because every other person in your niche is doing so, you may run into issues soon. There must be a clearly defined purpose for the blog. This purpose must inextricably relate to your business growth.

The purpose of the blog may be to increase brand awareness or to generate traffic for leads and sales. Whatever the reason, the purpose of the blog will influence your posts, your theme, your content strategy, and the effort you will invest in it.



Who is your ideal persona?

Your ideal persona is your perfect customer. Whether you are a B2B or a B2C brand, you need to be able to define the exact type of visitor you want to convert. Having this person in mind will help you in creating your content.

Apart from knowing this person, keeping a conversational tone when you write makes your post more engaging. A persona helps you to keep a conversational tone. You will have the picture of the reader in mind when you write.



What do you want to ignite in every visitor?

Do you want to motivate, enlighten, inspire, make to take action every visitor that reads your posts? You must know what you want from every visitor.

Your readers must feel something after reading your post. This takes knowing how to write effectively. As a business, a major goal is to make a profit. Your posts must be able to inspire readers to take action.

Don’t just write for the sake of writing. Write to achieve a purpose.



How often do you want to post?

Hubspot reveals that brands that post 16 or more times a month experience 3.5x more traffic than those who post once to four times a month.

I guess you found your answer.

Google algorithm likes fresh information. The frequency at which you post will increase your traffic. The frequency also helps you to keep up with events and fast trends which you can quickly use to pull traffic.

The more posts you create, the more pages of quality content you have for search engines to scan and index. New posts invariably open your blog to new opportunities for featuring in SERPs.

How well do you know your competition?

Have you done a keyword search for your niche? You should if you haven't. This will tell you how populated your niche is. The population should not necessarily scare you as you can build a brand that will rank on Google's first page. It will take time, money, good content, and learning to achieve that.

There are small brands that are exceptionally outdoing big brands as they are always looking for new ways to scale. Here is a keyword search result:



How to Create Your Business Blog

You may have a website and what you want to do is add a blog to it. This will be very easy to do if you own a WordPress website. Here is a way to get it done fast.

If it is a non-WordPress website, it may be a little more technical. You can see some YouTube videos or get an expert. However, if you are starting from scratch, you can follow the steps below to get it done.

1. Choose a platform

You need to decide on a blogging platform. Different platforms have their peculiarities. WordPress is known as the easiest to use blogging platform. However, you must be able to distinguish which one is beneficial for your brand and which isn't.

There is the 'www.yourdomain.wordpress.com' that you can easily get at www.wordpress.com. This is not what you want to use. You should instead head to wordpress.org to create your self-hosted blog.

There are other free blogging platforms such as Weebly, Joomla, and Drupal. These platforms allow you to set up your blog in a few steps. However, you should be mindful of certain restrictions in terms of design, functionality, and SEO which may pose serious problems to a successful business blog.

2. Get a fitting theme
If you use WordPress, there are several themes you can either buy or use for free. These themes are designed to help you bring out the feel and tone you will want on your website.

You can get free themes at the WordPress Theme Directory. Some websites offer premium paid themes. A search on Google will point you to these. When choosing a theme, consider the following:

How responsive is it? How nicely does it fit for mobile, tablet, and desktop? Is the display fitting for several devices? How is customer support? Is there a forum where you can ask for help?

Is the theme customizable? Can you customize the colors, buttons, navigation menu, widgets, etc)

Tips to Make Your Business Blogging a Success


Have a Content Promotion Strategy

A big mistake you can make is to think your posts are enough to bring you traffic. Well, it works differently. Your blog needs traffic and as a new blog, you are not well-indexed to rank high. Experienced bloggers will tell you that content creation is 20% while marketing is 80%. You need to market the content for success. See every post as a campaign. It requires a budget, time, attention, and constant adjustments.

You need a budget to buy traffic for your website. You can bid on display ads, social media ads, native ads, and mobile ads to drive traffic to your blog. Investing in traffic sources is a different deal. You need to understand your target audience and know where and how to attract them.

Will your target audience be on Facebook or LinkedIn? It could be that a large percentage of your target audience read business news in the morning. Being able to determine this will help you with targeting.



Create Valuable Content

Apart from the fact that the more you post, the more search engines like your blog, valuable content is highly essential. Valuable content is the retainer. It is what makes people not leave your blog within 5 seconds. If you don’t know, Google watches the bounce rate of websites. This means that if people leave your pages within 5 seconds of entering, Google thinks “something is wrong with this page.” This drops your ranking.

However, if people stay longer than 10 seconds, Google thinks “This is a great page. Let’s give the post a boost!” Your ranking will increase.

You need highly engaging posts to retain traffic. You may need to learn SEO copywriting in great detail.

If you are not a good writer, find one. Get a member of your team to do it. You can even outsource it. However, if you do, ensure that the post is written to your satisfaction and it is an original work.

Don’t just create written content, create visual content. Infographics, videos, and pictures capture your visitors' attention. They spend more time with your posts and are more likely to share those posts.

Good content is the way to grow your email list. An email list is highly essential to the success of your blog. Read more in the next tip.



Create an Email List

An email list is very crucial. It gives your blog a repeat audience.

You can always leverage on this list to draw traffic to your website. When you create a post, you share the synopsis and link in the email. More, you might have heard the statement: “the money is in the list.” This means that you can share offers and products with the members of your email list.

Not everyone will buy, but the more expansive your list, the more sales you can make.

You need to get personal in the mail. Personalization covers the name that sends them the email. Statistics show that the open rate for emails with names is higher than those who don't. You also want to include the name of the recipient in the body of the email. Videos have higher open rates than plain text. Just include ‘[video]’ in the subject line.

Use a nice theme and include a call to action. You can use an opt-in solution like OptinMonster. You can also use an email solution like MailChimp.



Use Long-tail Keywords

In this age of voice search, long-tail keywords give you an edge.

Voice searches are usually longer than the normal keyword search. They provide more details which can be helpful to you. Google helps you with this. Go to the last part of a page where other search terms are recommended. These terms are long-tail keywords that can help you rank greater. Just sprinkle them in the body of your content to watch your content rank higher.



Incorporate Social Media

Even if you operate in the B2B niche, business decision-makers are on social media.

Social media allows you to reach your target audience easily. With networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many more, you can target a wide range of people who fit your buyer persona.

You can run social media ads for a wide reach. This can drive traffic if done well.

You can also include share buttons or “tweet this” features to get your visitors to share the post. As a brand, you can link your social media accounts to this blog. When you create posts, you can share them on your page. This is aside from the social media ads you may need to run.

If you are a B2B brand, LinkedIn is particularly good for you.



Be Interactive

Encourage your visitors to comment on your post. When you reply, you encourage more comments. Thus, thank people for commenting and answer any question they may ask. It is best to reply to every comment. This will help you build an engagement level that will make them read your other posts.

Guest-Blog This is when you write for an established blog in your niche.

Having taken note of everything written above, you are set to write your first post. Put everything you can into it. Share iw this appears somewhat out of context, but it isn’t. As a new blog, you don’t have that much popularity or well-known presence. Writing on an established blog in your niche can help drive traffic to your website. All you need to do is provide backlinks to your posts. A lot of people who want to learn more will follow the trail and discover your blog. With your good content waiting for them, you will begin to gain traction.

Final wot, promote it, and start to plan for your next article. Blogging pays off as it draws from an endless pool of internet users. Use pictures and videos as they attract more audiences.

Happy blogging!