Blog writing is one of the best parts of a solid content marketing strategy. Writing articles to draw people into your website is a creative way to get your product or service out there for the world to see.
Writing quality content for your client base is important in the growth of your business. But let’s face it – sometimes the creative well runs dry.
Drawing on tried and true methods from the major players in the industry can help guide your business’ blog writing strategy.
Here’s a quick video about blog writing from Neil Patel for a quick background for the concepts ahead:
Quick Takeaways:
- Companies spend A LOT (even too much) on advertising
- Blog writing is a sustainable way to create new traffic to your website
- Starting off strong can build your organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than exclusively using paid advertising
Blogging Basics
While paid advertising is great for a short term boost, article publishing and blog creation helps boost long-term organic engagements from prospects and your current customers.
On average, it takes about 3-4 months of consistent, quality content to see larger yield. One article per week is a solid start, but getting into a daily rhythm of publishing will give you the quickest result over a shorter period of time.
Source: Marketing Insider Group
This process is especially beneficial for businesses that expect their prospects to seek education and information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is why you write a blog in the first place.
So, what does quality content look like? Well if you’re looking for blogging advice, we’ve got you covered with our guide to the perfect blog post. But for good measure, here’s the essentials for publishing content on your website.
1. Keep your word count between 1000 – 1800 words
Google likes articles within this range. Too little or too many might keep your hard work from ranking where it should!
2. Know your keywords
SEO/SEM is most successful when you know what words are the most important to what you talk about. Back to our party favor example, words like party, favor, event, would likely contribute best to a higher ranking among similar articles.
3. Have a compelling meta description
Source: Kinsta.com
The hook is everything, right? Having a good description under your article title will be the blurb prospects read. If it’s boring or irrelevant to them, why would they click on your article?
Keeping these rules in mind for every blog post you write, we’ve assembled our favorite blog post templates to keep you on the right path for your content marketing strategy:
Lists
Like this one! Articles that give the reader a variety of examples and options grant a better shot at giving them the most optimal solution to a problem or task.
SEMrush.com says:
The perfect listicle title is attention-grabbing but NOT clickbait. A title is clickbait if it is overly emotional or shocking in a way that doesn’t reflect the content. To avoid this, make sure you only use titles that accurately reflect your article as a whole.
You can get pretty creative with your lists. Remember, the object is to get a prospect to your site to become aware of your product – leading them down the marketing funnel.
For example, let’s say your startup sells grilling aprons. Creating content focused around keywords like recipes or grills will bring your target prospects (grillers) to your site. As they read your blog, they’ll realize “wow, I DO need a grilling apron for all this brisket I’m cooking!”
Some articles you’d write using this template would be:
The 15 Best Tools for your Grill
Top 10 BBQ Recipes for the Summer
RANKED: What Sauces are best for Grilling?
This isn’t just for selling products – the same idea applies to selling services too! If you’re trying to gain clients for say, your real estate business, some article ideas include:
What to Look For When Buying a House
10 Things First-Time Homeowners Get Wrong
Top 5 Places to Live In (Your Area Here)
How Tos
What’s one of the reasons you use the internet the most often? For me personally, I look up DIY projects and how-tos. As marketing professionals, we have to capitalize on potential customers doing the same!
How-to articles describe a step by step process (or solution) to a problem or task. Often the titles start with How To ___ and are followed by a separate clause that builds trust like, and how to stick with it or and why you should.
Let’s stick with the grilling example. Here are a few ways we could apply this blog template to the world of BBQ:
How to Get Your Grill Ready for the Summer
How to Find The Best Grill Tools: and Why You Should Look Now
This content is literally designed to propose a solution to a problem the reader may not have even known they had when they opened the article. Creating a sense of need through your blog posting is crucial to its overall success.
Comparisons
Comparison articles should seek to differentiate between two similar concepts or the pros and cons of extremely different ideas. This formula is commonly referred to as X vs Y. This type of article is particularly helpful if you expect your clients to be doing research on your product or industry.
Some examples of this format from us at Marketing Insider Group include:
Virtual Events & Webinars: What Are The Key Differences?
Organic Search vs. Paid Search: Which is Better?
Retargeting vs. Remarketing: What’s The Difference?
It doesn’t always have to be vs. It can just be a comparison of two relevant topics to inform your reader of nuance and detail.
Definitions (What Is?)
A common thread in every business (B2C or B2B) is the definitions category of blog posts. Think about it, how many times have you searched up something on the internet you wanted to know more about?
For a B2B, this category is a treasure trove. For example if you run an SEO consultancy, you would target keywords like SEO, search results, and Google trends.
Definition articles should be a general overview of whatever topic you think your target audience would be researching (or would grab their attention!). Using an SEO consultancy as an example, some definition / general overview articles could be:
What is Search Engine Optimization: And Why Should You Care?
What is the Point of Digital Marketing?
The Ins and Outs of Google Trends: Building Your Brand Online
Get creative with your titles! You should have some diversity in your articles to draw in different people looking for different things. It’s important to experiment with these templates to find the content that works best for your website.
Expert Guest Posts
If you’re struggling to find inspiration or just don’t have the time, consider hiring a guest writer! Guest writers can provide legitimacy to your brain with their expertise and even bring over their audiences to your site. Not to mention, they probably already know how to write the perfect blog post.
Hiring professionals in your industry can bring another layer of legitimacy to your blog. Not to mention, many experts bring readers with them wherever they go, providing an immediate boost to your viewership and clickthrough rates.
This one is pretty open for the format, but creating a strong introduction for the writer and leading them in can help inform your normal audience why they should care about the wisdom offered. Sometimes you have to discuss experience and credentials to get your audience to pay attention.
This looks a bit like:
Intro from you or your writer about the expert
-> Intro from the expert
→ Actual content produced from the expert
Wrap Up
No matter which template you use, what’s important is that your blog is reiterating the need for your product or service. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should have a big BUY NOW button at the end, but writing about unrelated topics is a disservice to you AND your prospect or client.
By keeping the basic rules of writing a perfect post at the forefront of your blog writing efforts, you can continue furthering your overall content marketing lead conversion rates and keep your ad spending down. Now that you have some fresh ideas, get to writing!
Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? What luck! Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.
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