Businesses often want the SEO and customer loyalty benefits of having a robust and useful blog. However, keeping your blog up to date and relevant can be a bigger task than some companies expect. These efforts require time, writing expertise, industry research, and coordination to create quality content that fully delivers results. By following the tips in this article, you will not only improve your company’s blog but also you will understand better the role that content plays in an excellent marketing strategy.
Keeping your blog up to date with quality content
The results are clear: having a blog for your business increases your new organic marketing leads without annoying current customers or potential customers. However, most businesses are experts in their fields, not in writing interesting blogs. So, what kinds of things do they need to pay attention to when taking a business blog to the next level? Complete these 5 goals to achieve a positive blogging outcome.
Plan an Editorial Calendar
To keep customers returning to your blog, it is usually best to post very frequently. A typical number of posts would be three articles or blog posts a week. In order to generate this much content, it is wise to consider what kinds of themes you want to cover and how they will tie to your company’s best SEO keywords.
While some people want to include keywords in their articles as much as possible, it takes a lot of creativity to include all keywords needed while still providing new, useful information. For this reason, many companies consider ordering posts rather than writing them in-house. You want your posts to be different every week and valuable to customers. Consider the rhythms of the year, including holidays and seasons, and how your customers may see products and services differently throughout the year.
With these elements in mind, you can generate a list of planned topics that go for months at a time, rather than simply posting whatever comes to mind in a given week. Editorial calendars also give you a space to allow one or more posts each month to be tied to some element of current events or the news. What is most important is to have a general framework for the content you want, as well as some flexibility.
Analyze Your Target Audience
With analytics software, including Google Analytics and others, it is possible to see which of your posts receive the most views, which get the most click-through or conversion, and which get shared with friends via social media. Each of these are valuable metrics for choosing how to proceed in your editorial calendar, and as you generate more and more content, you get a better idea of what content your audience finds interesting and helpful.
If you find that a few of your articles achieved great success or even went “viral,” try to evaluate what they have in common. Publishing more posts like these can make your blog more valuable.
Routinely Reevaluate Your Old Content for Updates
As your content grows older, you’ll notice that updates to your industry may make it necessary to change old articles. Removing the old articles, however, reduces the total content you have with your specific keywords, which can reduce your rankings in search engines. Instead of removing content, keep an eye on your oldest posts and publish “update posts” that make sure your customers and readers are up-to-date with the most relevant news and trends.
Most industries have new regulations, trends, or technology, so some of your content is bound to become incorrect after months or years. Adding update posts frequently shows that your company has the finger on the pulse of the latest information. This generates credibility and makes you more likely to be a bookmarked source for people interested in your products and services.
Follow Your Competitors’ Blogs and Outperform Them
If you work in direct competition with a company that maintains a blog, one great way to shine in the marketplace is to pay attention to their content and write better, more useful posts on similar subjects. Clearly, you don’t want to select the same topics each week, since it becomes clear to customers, but if you notice that they have done a surface-level post that receives a lot of social media attention, you may want to do an in-depth analysis of a similar topic.
The goal is not to replicate good content, but instead to draw interest and attention away from your competitor because your information helps them make good choices, change some element of their lives, or feel happy with their choices. Only through quality content can you truly get an edge over your competitors, but knowing what they write is a valuable first step toward making the better blog.
Notice News and Trends in Your Field and Incorporate them into Your Blog
Some blogs discuss the general subjects of their industries and then become worried about keeping a blog up to date. However, the best sources of information about your industry are also the best sources of inspiration for the blog. Make it your business to know what changes are occurring in your industry, be it through regulation, new technological advances, or changes in customer preferences in various demographics. By reading trade publications as well as keeping some news alerts on search engines for your keywords and industry, you can get fresh information that can become new blog topics for your site.
While many of these elements may be folded into the goals of a marketing or sales team, few businesses employ a professional writer who can consistently have the time to generate material. When your business is focusing efforts on keeping your blog up to date, trust an experienced team to research and write posts for your blog.
Lowpost offers a time and money saving opportunity because we hire writers who can generate content quickly and efficiently based on your customized, industry-specific needs. Quality content is time-consuming for people who usually spend their time doing other tasks for a business, but a consistent brand strategy is within your reach when you choose us.
