Business owners are constantly seeking ways to expand their reach online, and blogging can be one of the tools that can aid them.
Blogs offer small businesses an incredible way to reach potential customers, from those early in their buying process to sales-ready leads and existing clients. But successful implementation of such an effort requires planning.
1. Understand Your Niche
Blogging can be an excellent way to gain new customers, but you must choose an interesting niche for your blog that provides value to readers while drawing in new followers.
Niche markets are small, particular markets you can target with your content for maximum success. Aiming at underserved markets is often worthwhile; research tools such as consumer rating indexes can help.
Once you have identified your niche, research and understand your audience thoroughly, this means gaining an in-depth knowledge of their demographics (age, location, job title, etc.) and psychographics (values, interests, beliefs, etc). Understanding them intimately will allow you to engage them through your blog and turn it into an successful online business venture.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
Blogosphere can be an expansive world. To stand out, you must gain an in-depth knowledge of your audience and focus on creating impactful blogs tailored towards meeting their needs.
Once you know your three most desirable customer types, start gathering high-level themes that resonate with them. This will generate blog post ideas and give insight into what other competitors are doing (which we will cover later).
Content pillars can also help guide blog topic choices; do keyword research to see what searches your audience is conducting to inform this decision-making.
3. Research Keywords
Blogging can help small businesses generate content that answers customer questions and addresses problems engagingly, drawing organic search traffic and increasing leads.
Google Analytics, or another tool that shows the keywords people enter into your website search bar, is an effective way of uncovering blog post topics and ideas. Furthermore, speaking to colleagues in Sales or Service about which terms customers often use or frequent questions they receive can also provide great inspiration.
Once you know your target audience and topic ideas, the next step is writing. For maximum productivity and content creation at any moment in time, keep a few post drafts in your queue so you have posts ready at any time.
4. Write Posts
Internet content is abundant, making it essential for business blogs to make themselves stand out by producing posts that are not only informative but also short and easy to digest. Web users tend to scan web pages rather than read word for word; therefore, using headings and bullet points will help break up long posts into digestible chunks.
One way to make your business blog even more distinctive is to use it as an outlet for customer success stories. A company posting about happy customers demonstrates its care for its audience and commitment to superior service.
Be sure to promote your blog on social media and other marketing platforms to reach potential customers, boost traffic and visibility for your business, and lead to more significant lead generation and sales. This can increase both leads and sales for you.
5. Promote Your Blog
No matter your aim is attracting new customers, improving relationships with existing ones, or raising brand awareness, to be effective, a blog requires excellent content and targeting and promoting it to the appropriate target audiences at appropriate times.
Start by providing links to your blog on your website and social media profiles, so visitors can easily access its latest posts.
Your blog should also be promoted by sharing links in online communities like Reddit and web forums where your expertise may be valued. Also, consider including a link to your blog in any automated email communications related to your business (for instance, welcome emails and order confirmation. Other tactics may be available for promotion, but all may not apply across industries and niches.
