So you think you can manage a business blog?
It may not be as easy as it sounds. Thousands of businesses, small or large, are launching blogs on their site every day.
Business blogs are valuable vehicles to keep your customers updated on your company and its product or service, not to mention empowering new prospects to make a buying decision.
These pieces of information can pique readers’ interests, providing them with helpful resources through an assortment of links integrated into the posts.
Moreover, if your site is frequently updated, it will hold a good ranking on search engines like Google and Bing.
People tend to revisit enjoyable blogs, even possibly ascending the next step by subscribing. Poorly executed blogs, on the other hand, often fall off the internet’s radar due to lacklustre content and failure to captivate audiences.
But what makes a good blog, good?
Managing a business blog can be quite challenging, especially when the same rules for personal blogs don’t apply. Engaging readers with posts that aren’t too longwinded takes strategic planning and writing for them to have maximum impact.
Today, we’ll be covering effective business blog management with this useful guide.
Strategic Planning & Goals
First things first: You must set up strategies and goals for your blog. This crucial stage precedes even your first post because you can’t correctly measure or report your success without any stipulated expectations.
Here are some examples of blog agendas:
- Garner X number of readers in Y number of months
- Obtain X new leads by the end of the year
- Rank on the first page of Google results with X organic keywords
- Establish blog site as an industry resource that grows overall brand awareness
Next, you should gather the relevant staff such as marketing, sales, service, finance, etc. and kickstart a conversation on your strategy:
- Situation analysis- Find out what’s happening in the market right now. What does the latest customer survey conclude?
- Competitive review- Take a look at what your competitors are doing, no matter good or bad. You’re not about to commit plagiarism, but having awareness can make it easier to propose relevant ideas; maybe even better ones.
- Buyer personas- Start a discussion about your top three customer personas. Are there any modifications to be made to coincide with the blog as a channel? Once you’ve developed audience personas, it’s good to keep this in mind.
- Assessment of potential audience- Then, begin listing high-level themes that could intrigue prospective audiences. How are other business blogs meeting their information needs? How can they improve, or what have they missed?
- Objectives- After you’ve landed on a sweet spot, taking into consideration your top three buyer types and brand position, you’re almost ready to play with the big boys! If the objective of your blog is to increase conversion, ruminate on where your readers can go to accomplish this. How can you provide that?
- SEO-friendliness- Don’t forget to discuss targeted keywords and phrases to emphasise in your posts as well. By incorporating SEO-tailored writing, your blog will have more visibility in search results, ready to serve and provide answers to those seeking solutions.
Too many companies become so fixated on social channels that they oversee the underlying content strategy. Without a core strategy or mission statement, you might as well be writing to a dark void.
Therefore, be careful not to skim over these meetings. Gather everyone who will contribute to the blog and facilitate a discussion to determine the purposes and guidelines for your tactic succinctly.
Content Development
The ongoing process of business blogging and management can be dreary when it involves thinking up witty content ideas and content marketing strategy for the long-term.
However, brainstorming broad topics beforehand can save you some trouble later.
You should consider content types relevant to your brand—how-to posts, list posts, guides, and more. Which format offers the most value to your target audience?
Aside from that, many business blog managers prefer using an editorial calendar to map out content across a time spectrum.
Your calendars can be detailed down to the T, including categories, word count, links used, etc. A mind map software can also be a valuable component in the creative process for identifying related content pathways.
Running Your Business Blog
Your blog is live! In the following weeks and months, your job (or whomever you appoint) is to maintain it at peak performance. Remember to stay organised, resourceful and creative under your reign.
A. Blog idea curation and updating
Don’t drop the ball on scanning for timely topics, hard news, evolving fads and other juicy content opportunities. Continue researching keywords.
By practising lateral thinking, you can uphold a healthy balance between business interests and lighter mind fare, or even gain a whole new perspective on content opportunities.
Your business blog needs to be up-to-date, providing audiences with regular content so that they’re likely to revisit your site. If you post irregularly, people are less likely to return.
Deciding on a scheduled frequency that’s realistic and achievable will make allocating time for drafting and publishing easier.
It can be every day, week or fortnight—it’s up to you. As long as it’s regularly updated, rest assured you will generate traffic and rank.
B. Blog promotion
The point of blogging is to connect with your customers. If nobody shares or comments on your posts, you’ve failed at engaging with them. Business blog success requires you to show up at your promised time and deliver useful, entertaining content.
Some posts may have more brunt than others. Consequently, a part of your journey should be devoted to developing a sequence for blog promotion via social networks under your corporate accounts.
Let’s say you have contributors with a significant following. It can work to your advantage if they’re enthusiastic about sharing via your networks on your behalf.
Monitor & Evaluate Results
Observe and document your blog’s activity using the relevant metrics at three, six and nine-month intervals. Are there any changes in trend? Using analytics, verify the status of critical performance indicators.
Outsource Your Blog Management
In case analytics and search engine marketing aren’t your strong suits, you can always outsource a professional consultant.
Blogs are not a walk in the park to manage; they take time, creativity and planning to flourish. Hiring a team of experts can lay your mind at ease since you’ll have the liberty to focus on more pressing matters at hand.
Walk Production is the answer to your dilemma!
We are a creative agency that offers blog management services, including content writing, SEO strategising, copywriting, website development and more. Rest assured you’ll be in good, experienced hands.
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