It’s official, we all need to be blogging.
From business coaches to retailers. Massively important to any marketing campaign, it helps keep those search engines trawling through our website and keeping us listed high on their search results. But with so many of us writing them how do we stand out? How do we turn a blog into a good blog, and better yet, a good blog into a great blog?
Know your audience
Before you even begin, think about who your target audience is and what it is they want to know about. What’s going to make them sit up and listen (or in this case read)? Is there a common question you’re always being asked, or a topic people always want your advice on? The secret is to share information so people can do it themselves, but by displaying your expertise, to try and encourage people to instruct you as a trusted professional. For example, if you are a business coach, rather than blogging about how a coach could help manage culture change of a company, you may give advice on how a Director may adjust their approach to engage employees.
Make a plan
Not only is it a good idea to plan your topics in advance so you know you’ll have something to blog about, but it will encourage your blog platform to flow. Often, businesses miss this step or don’t appreciate the value in the planning stage and blogs are written and posted at random. A clear plan allows for a story to be told. For example, a Virtual Assistant’s topic may simply address exactly what a VA is. The first blog may be “what is a Virtual Assistant?” which may lead to a second blog on “How Can a Virtual Assistant help you” and a final blog on “What you need to know when instructing a Virtual Assistant”.
This stage also allows you to plan the content for the blogs;
- What are the key messages you want to get across?
- List any keywords that need to be included. One keyword should ideally be used within the first paragraph. If you have an ace digital team, they’ll be able to tell you exactly what these are.
You can’t beat a fab title and opening paragraph
Just like a news article, you need to grab your readers’ attention and keep them captivated. Let your imagination run wild when it comes to naming your blog. No one wants to read another “How to write a good blog”, whereas “Ideas to supercharge your blog” now this is one to read… see what we did there.
Use images
The human brain processes visual content faster than text-based content. Adding appealing images can help to increase your engagement.
An image, such as an illustration can also be used to help explain complicated topics and adds an element of fun to a post. However, make sure the image is relevant otherwise you’ll leave readers confused.
Don’t blog because you have to
Confused? The first thing we told you is “it’s official, we all need to be writing blogs”. Correct. As businesses, we are told that we need to be writing blogs to encourage engagement and help with our website listings, which is all true.
But, we’re now going to tell you to ignore that in order for you to write GREAT blogs.
The best blogs, and the most successful are created by those who do it because they love it, not because they’ve been told they should or because they’ve been told they can make money from it. They share their ideas, knowledge and experiences because they choose to use this platform as their voice.
To make truly compelling blogs find something you just have to shout about. Something you are going to enjoy writing and you can’t wait to share. Write it for you as much as for your readers. And most of all, remember, a blog doesn’t have to be perfect. They started as online journals for businesses, just notes and ideas; the less overthinking, the better the blog.