As the in-house SEO expert, I’m frequently asked about setting up company blogs. “Should we be blogging?” “What should we include in our blog?” “How often should we post to the blog?” “Does it help with SEO?” And my answer is always “It depends on what you want the blog to do for you.” As with any marketing component, you must have a clearly defined strategy. A successful blog strategy must meet both business and reader objectives.
Readers Objectives
Your reader is the most important element in this formula. You may argue this point, but in order for your blog to achieve your business objectives, you must first address your reader’s objectives. Your audience is likely to be your current and potentially future customers. They have come to your blog to serve a purpose. Readers are looking to get beyond the basic marketing website content and learn about the company as a being. They want to understand your corporate philosophy and gauge your industry leadership and expertise—and they are looking to get professionally personal and witness that expertise in writing. A company blog can be the perfect venue to share that leadership and provide your readers with evidence to the affect.
Business Objectives
Now that you’ve addressed the fact that you are writing to meet your reader’s needs you need to somehow tie this back to your business objectives. Blogs can influence many KPIs, such as building awareness, garnering consumer engagement, improving lead generation value, and increasing sales. But building consumer knowledge and trust is the KPI that I feel is the most critical. In the digital culture, information on any topic is readily available from many different sources. A blog that is continually updated with high quality content that enhances the visitor experience will be seen by readers as a source of quality information. The more often your audience visits and reads new articles, the more opportunities exist to increase engagement and awareness within their networks.
High Quality Content
Now you know who you are writing for and why you are writing. Now the question is…what to write? This may seem overly simple, but write what you know best. You know your products and services. You know your industry and competitors. Whatever it is, make sure that you are knowledgeable and can provide value to the reader. Remember what the readers want you to write. If you find yourself asking, “What does my reader want to know?” check out your analytics. Look at top pages; the ones with the most page views (other than the home page), and pages that have a longer-than-average time on page. These pages indicate content that your readers may find interesting and they may lend themselves to several blog posts to provide more detail. The other thing to look for are landing pages with high bounce rates; this may indicate a page that either is light on content, confusing, or lacks a compelling call to action. This may be an opportunity to expand the content by adding a link between the landing page and the blog to help keep visitors on your site, learning more about your goods and services.
The Holy Grail
Now that you’ve established relevant quality content that will appeal to your target audience, it’s time for your blog to take on a life of its own. You want to influence your readers to spread your content by asking for their feedback. It’s a good practice to ask your readers to comment or share their experiences with the rest of your audience. This will help build a community of readers who will share your thoughts and ideas, and will in turn add more value to your blog. At the end of the day, always remember: the single most important element in the success of your blog will be the reader.
