Photo by Steve Hankins (Flickr)
The purpose of this blog post isn’t to persuade you to start a “blog.”
If you’ve read this far, I’m going to assume that you already have a blog for your business and inherently understand the benefits of content marketing.
That being said, my goal is to simply provide the “blogging CEO and Business Owner” with a few tips that will help them get more visits to their blog (and website) and - ultimately - make people fall in love with it (translation: get more leads).
1. Write with someone in mind
I know this seems obvious, but how many of you actually do this?
If you do, when’s the last time you thought about this person? Specifically, what their needs and wants are? Last week? Last quarter? [Gulp] Last Year?
Remember just like your business, your blog audience can change and evolve, so reviewing this every quarter is a must.
Some of the best writers and bloggers out there, write with an “actual” person in mind. This is something I do quite often as well.
Best of all, it doesn’t have to be difficult or painful.
When writing a blog post, I’ll often think of a client and the conversation I had with them. I’ll think about the problem they’re having or the questions they’ve asked me.
Chances are if they have a problem, someone else - out there - probably has it too, so why not blog about it?
If you can’t think of anyone in particular, default back to a description or persona of that person.
For example, the audience we strive to write for are:
“Business owners - or decision makers - who are predominantly in the B2B category and have an annual revenue growth target between $1 - 5 million.”
Specifically, they instinctively knows that the web is essential to their growth and see the potential, but lack the expertise to lead or the resources to execute their vision.
2. Being passionate or knowledgeable about the topics you blog about
As an owner or decision-maker, if you’ve personally made the commitment to write for your company’s blog, you must write about things you feel passionate about - at least for the moment.
If you don’t, you’ll simply run out of steam.
That said, passion will only get you so far. Depending on your business, you also need to be knowledgeable about the topics you’re writing about. You can never go wrong if you try to educate your audience.
For example, our readers know that the web is essential to growth, but they simply lack the expertise to execute a solid Internet Marketing Game Plan for their business.
Therefore, on our blog, we strive to educate our readers about what’s possible when it comes to promoting their business via the web.
Of course, you can also get other people to write content for your blog, and in most cases, that’s okay as long as they have some general guidelines to follow to ensure the content achieves its objectives. Which leads me to my third and final point.
3. Make sure your blog has a general “theme.”
Our blog is about “Internet or Inbound Marketing.”
From there, we can get more specific with blog categories and tags to enhance user experience. For example, we can write a post about “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO), but tag it with something like “Google SEO Changes.”
Having an overall theme for your blog is important if your goal is to build a community or a following.
Again, if someone comes to our blog via a post, we want them to quickly realize that our blog is about “Internet Marketing,” so perhaps the next time they have a question about Content Marketing or SEO they’ll come back.
This is what I call blogging with both a “passion and purpose.”
