If you are thinking of starting a blog for your business then you are making a fantastic decision. Blogging is great for attracting and engaging an audience but it can also help you improve your website’s SEO. There is however a right and a wrong way to blog. Here we’ll talk you through some of the dos and don’ts of creating great content to help you get off to a good start.
Write for your Audience
A common mistake that people make when it comes to blogging is making it all about the search engines. Sure blogging is great for improving your SEO (something we’ll talk about later) but if your posts don’t engage your audience, you’re not going to achieve anything.
Make sure you write posts that your audience will be interested in. Think about the questions they may have about your products, business or industry and answer them. Talk about topics of relevance to them; things they care about or can relate to. The more interesting, engaging and relevant your blog posts are the higher chance you stand of securing a loyal readership.
Post Consistently
Keeping on top of a content schedule can be difficult but if you only post once in a blue moon, you can’t expect to see great results from blogging. Posting every week or every fortnight is a great way to keep visitors coming back to your site. Not only that but it’ll also attract search engine spiders to crawl your blog more often, as they love to see fresh content!
Vary Your Content
Whilst it’s important to write about relevant topics on a business blog, this doesn’t mean they all have to be text based. There are a number of different ways you can vary your content from producing an infographic to creating a short video.
When varying your content, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your blog analytics. If views and engagement increase when you post a particular type of content, you’ll know it’s something your audience likes and therefore a good formula to use again in the future.
Include Relevant Keywords
Using relevant keywords naturally within your content is a great way to optimise it for search engines. However please note that we’ve said ‘naturally.’ Stuffing keywords is a type of black hat SEO and is not something you should be doing to increase your search rankings.
DON’T
Copy Other Businesses
Never copy and content from another blog or website. Not only could you be infringing their copyright but also harming your blog’s SEO. Google doesn’t like duplicate content, so it’s best to stick to writing your own unique and engaging blog posts.
Forget to Spell Check
You don’t have to be the world’s best writer to start a business blog, though it’s important to keep it as professional as possible. One way you can do this is by ensuring it isn’t full of spelling and grammar mistakes. Always use spell check and get someone to proof read your post before hitting publish.
Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Blogging isn’t easy. Finding the time to come up with ideas, let alone write the posts can be difficult. This is why many business owners choose to outsource blog writing to professional copywriters. Working with a copywriter will give you more time to concentrate on other important tasks, whilst still reaping all the benefits from a thriving business blog.