These days, most companies that have an online presence also have a blog. What began in the 1990s as a “weblog,” where individuals could log their thoughts on the Internet, has evolved into a powerful marketing tool for businesses. To online customers, blogs are a go-to source for information on new strategies and products on the market that could better their business. Blogs play a key role in demand generation as current and potential customers seek new ways to solve identified issues or discover better ways to run a business that they never considered.
Blogs that incorporate the right elements can move your business up in online search rankings, adding visibility to your brand and increasing web traffic. According to HubSpot, companies that maintain a blog are 13x more likely to generate a positive return on investment year after year. HubSpot also found that businesses with 401-1,000 pages of content get 6x more leads than those with 51-100 pages of content.
Identifying how to optimize your blogging strategy will help drive a stronger ROI for your company with its demand and lead generation efforts.
4 qualities a blog needs to be successful
1. Dedication. Posting regularly provides an opportunity to show that you’re current on industry trends and developments. Aim to post at least twice a week if you can. Active posting shows that your company is dedicated, informed and immersed in industry news and trends. The regular creation of relevant content for your customers helps expand your brand’s reach and notifies potential customers that you’re a leader within the industry with valuable things to contribute.
2. Search engine optimization. Search engine optimization can make or break a content marketing blogging strategy. So if you decide to write a blog about, say, new mortgage options, you’ll want to incorporate this and other related words into the article to give you a bump in search results. While your company’s website may include a page on each mortgage option your business offers, it’s safe to say that those pages don’t get regularly updated. In contrast, every time you write a blog post about those available mortgage options, it’s one more indexed page on your website for Google to crawl. As a result, it’s one more opportunity for your website to show up in search engine results and drive traffic to your website.
3. Downloads and calls to action. When used as a marketing device, a blog should include elements that redirect visitors to important pages within your site. As you provide readers of the blog with relevant industry news or helpful tips, make it easy for them to go where you ultimately want them to be: the checkout, a customer information form, an assessment, a download, a webinar or anywhere else that hosts customer-centric information. The blog is the key to your demand generation strategy, while the internal links included in articles help drive readers to the lead generating components of your content marketing strategy – landing pages for those ebooks and assessments.
4. Getting the right people on board. The best and most entertaining blog content I’ve read has been varied in voice, subject matter, tone and approach. Including different levels of expertise on a multitude of topics will help your blog stand out from the rest and connect with more readers.
J&C has articles written by proofreaders, programmers, copywriters, account directors, art directors and the owner of the company, to name a few. We all have our own voice, and we all bring different experiences to a project. Featuring multiple authors is a great way to prevent your blog from becoming stale, but it also provides a comprehensive view of your business, which is important to undecided customers.
For more information on how you can maximize your content marketing strategy with a corporate blog, register for our free assessment and action plan. We’ll work with you to quantify objectives for lead generation and conversions.
Topics: Inbound Marketing
