Strategic blogging is absolutely necessary for any business today because it allows you to engage with your target audience in a conversational yet relevant way.

You can also build brand awareness and provide useful information about your products and services to your core audience and prospective customers.

Blogging is a creative way for small businesses to drive traffic and enhance their content marketing efforts but the problem is, many company blogs fail to get the expected results.

If you feel that you are not leveraging the full potential of your blog try these six blogging tips to boost your online presence and your bottom line.

1. Blog consistently

There’s no need to spend an exorbitant amount of time blogging, however, you ought to be consistent.  Don’t post five blog posts in a day and then nothing for the next two months because your business blog will quickly become stale if you aren’t consistent.  Instead, post at least one or two blog posts each week or find an editorial schedule that works for you.

According to Hubspot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.

While you cannot spend your day blogging, you should block out a dedicated time to offer your readership some freshly baked content.

2. Do keyword research

Blogging can provide an exceptional boost to your search engine optimization (SEO).  Therefore, you should insert relevant keywords that are directly and indirectly related to your products and services.

Use keywords to target what your potential customers are searching for.  There’s no point in having a blog that isn’t read, driving traffic to your site, or at least providing useful information to your customers; so do the research and choose those keywords that are widely used by consumers in your particular niche or industry.

For example, if you own a salon or a hair product company, you can drive traffic to your site by posting content that includes “how to stop hair loss” or “help with dry scalp”.  In this example “how to stop hair loss” or “dry scalp” are popular keywords used by individuals seeking answers on these topics.

3. Choose optimized blog lengths

Your business blog should be optimized for humans as well as search engines.  Google, Bing, and Yahoo love long-form content and therefore you need to figure out how long your post will be, keeping in mind that articles less than 300 words are often overlooked by major search engines and users.

People not only go online for shopping but they also go to your website for information, let that sink in.  Yes, they are going to your site for information about your products and services and your potential customers are interested in detailed posts that will solve their issues.  A recent study showed that articles with at least 1,000 to 2,000 words rank better in search engines.  Also, such blog posts attract more readers to your site and brand.

4. Select the title carefully

A title is the unique selling proposition of your blog post.  Including the keyword in the title will not only attract search engines and increase your rankings it will also draw the attention of your target audience.  A title should explain to your readers what the post is about.

5. Include graphics

Videos and/or images can increase the engagement of your readers.  Adding a chart or image packed with relevant data is a great way to arouse the attention of visitors to your post.

However, you should make certain that there aren’t too many images, as it can increase the page loading time, which will deter users as well as search engines.

6. Address questions of your users

A wealth of blog topics could come from your customers.  If your end-users have questions related to something about your business, write down the ideas and draft an article centered on those ideas.  Answering the questions of users will serve two purposes.  First, you could provide solutions to questions that are worrying to your customers.

Secondly, it could help you to craft actionable content that may engage others with similar queries.  Like I mentioned above in Tip #3, people not only hit your site to buy merch but they also go to your blog for education/information on how to use your merchandise, products, and services.

Bottom line

Blogging is not a magical rapid growth strategy and in the wrong hands, it could actually hurt your brand.  However, intelligent and strategic blogging delivers big results over a span of time, it just takes nurturing and consistency to grow into its full potential eventually adding value to your readers, customers and to your bottom line.

If you need help and do not have the time, talent or resources dedicated to improving your company’s blog, give us a shout, we know your brand and audience well and we’ll be glad to help you get better results from your blogging efforts.

Get in touch today, we can discuss your initiatives for content marketing and intelligent blogging for business growth.