A business blog set up to generate inbound traffic for your business is an excellent idea. But it really is not as easy as it sounds. Gone are the days when you could have a hobby blog that could help you build a successful site and business. Imagine that. A business model where you can make a profit from just writing about what you love.
Google is now a completely different beast. You now have to worry about SEO and the competition. And talk about competition. It seems now everyone now owns a website. Also, with the rise of AI, anybody can churn out 100s or even 1000s of articles a day. So what is even the point?
Well, a website or blog establishes your credibility as an entrepreneur and professional. Just imagine someone has a problem. They have no knowledge of who you are or what you do. However, they land on your website and find an effective solution to said problem. You instantly gain credibility as a result. And you may have made yourself a new customer in the process.
There are several strategies you can adopt when building your blog. Here is a quick list of them:
Niche down
Build topical authority
Do SEO research
Rely on well-written outlines before writing
Make your writing readable
Use AI wisely
Leverage social media
In this article, I will focus on each of these points to help you create a blog that works. That is, a blog that can rank on Google and turn your website visitors into leads and sales.
1. Establish a niche
We have all heard the phrase — “Jack of all trades: Master of none.” You likely won’t be able to excel in any subject area without mastering it. This is why you should establish a niche for your blog.
A niche blog might seem tiring. At a certain point, it may seem like more of a chore than pursuing something you love. However, that is simply how it works. The Google algorithm excels in recognizing patterns.
This means if you have a blog that switches between writing articles about biking to articles about whether or not to use an Oxford comma, then you are putting out the wrong signals for the Google bots crawling your website.
So what does sticking to a niche look like? It means:
Writing about what you specialize in
Avoiding unrelated topics on your blog
Adding your unique perspective to an otherwise boring topic
If you’re an affiliate site, you should focus on a narrow set of topics that are interrelated. Avoid the approach of writing about attractive affiliate products with high commissions, but that are unrelated to each other.
Your site should not be looking like a miscellaneous Weekend Flea Market or Yard Sale. Think about building new websites to reconcile your diverse interests. That would make more sense than fitting dozens of miscellaneous topics in one blog.
2. Build topical authority
Topical authority has been a buzzword for the past few years in the world of SEO. It is a rather complicated concept. I will try my best to make it short and clear here. Topical authority means covering a topic as completely as possible.
With Topical Authority, you cover every aspect of a subject. It begins with what is called a topical authority map. This can also be referred to as a content plan. Let’s take a look at a B2C website that sells packaged single-origin coffee.
To attract as many vistors and potential leads as possible, you should think: What topics are people who are likely to buy coffee are interested in?
For example, article titles would include:
Best coffee for cold brews
Best specialty coffee
The health benefits of coffee
All of these topics fall within the broad topics of coffee. The logic is as follows. Someone interested in buying specialty coffee would be interested in discovering how to distinguish between premium quality coffee and lower grades of coffee.
So, all these topics would be appropriate. However, topical authority would go one step further and make this much more systematic. Each separate bubble or unit could be either its own blog article blog. In some cases, if the subtopic is small enough, it could serve as a heading or subheading within an article.
This is up to you to decide. However, what is important is Interlinking. That means taking URLs from one blog article and embedding it in text (also known as anchor texts) in other articles located on the same blog.
The Google algorithm will appreciate you for it. Your users will enjoy not having to switch from one website to the next to access related information.
So why would topical authority work? The theory goes that to index websites, Google uses a ton of energy. It would be much more efficient and cost-saving for Google to prioritize sites that are “complete.”
That is, sites that eliminate the need for searchers to go back and forth between properties to find related units and subunits of information. This guarantees that readers will spend longer on your blog and will be more likely to purchase your product or services.
Remember, the point of Google is to improve user experience. Never mind all the criticism that Google receives, this remains the company’s primary goal.
A site that enables the Google algorithm to achieve this goal while saving energy and cost would be rewarded and prioritized by being ranked higher than other sites that fail to do so.
3. Use SEO to rank your blog
SEO should be a huge part of your blogging strategy. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Of course, Google isn’t the only search engine. It has rivals such as Bing and DuckDuck Go. There are also new entrants to the market, such as AI search engines.
In fact, any platform with a search bar or an algorithm determining what content is shown to whom and how frequently can be described as being something that SEO can be applied to .
However, here our focus is on Google. Google is the largest, most comprehensive, and — frankly — the most important search engine out there.
Google is a giant and complicated AI machine programmed to answer millions of questions from 4.3 billion users all over the world. The Google algorithm is designed to solve this challenge. It works by recognizing and rewarding search and content patterns that work.
With SEO, you recognize these content patterns and take advantage of them in your writing. Keyword research is supposed to begin long before you even start writing a single blog article. This task is carried out using keyword tools. There are many to pick from. They include:
Most of these tools have free versions or tiers that you could use. However, SemRush provides the best free trial in my personal experience. First, what is a keyword?
So after doing this research to decide the terms that are worth writing blog articles on, you then go ahead with keyword optimization. This means putting keywords in your headings, subheadings, and body of your blog text.
4. Rely on well-written outlines before writing
Outlines simply help you write better. Much of the stuff you learn in college writing courses may not be applicable to blog writing. However, one thing remains true. Outlines save you time and effort.
When writing outlines, here are tips to follow:
Pick the best-ranking article and take ideas from them
Do original research based offline, such as books
Use AI tools wisely to write article briefs or outlines
Make sure that the outlines you come up with are not simply copy and paste. AI tools are a hit-and-miss when writing either content or content briefs. So, if you use an AI tool to write a brief don’t blindly follow it.
You should compare its results with the research that you carry out on the best-performing articles and resources that you gather offline. When necessary, edit your content brief.
Nothing is worse than writing an article free style, only to come back and fix and edit things whil you do so. Content briefs save you time, effort, and money.
5. Make your writing readable
Readable writing is key to successful blogging. The primary goal of a blog is to give readers valuable information or answer their questions. However, you should never overlook the delivery of this information.
When writing, keep sentences short or at least no longer than what they have to be. In addition, always use a conversational style. Think of a blog as little more than a conversation in written form. The type of words and tone that won’t fly in everyday language most likely should not be used in a blog.
Remember, you are no longer in college writing academic essays. The methods that worked in your five-paragraph essay format will not work here. Here is a roundup of tips to follow to make your blog readable:
Use short paragraphs
Use short sentences
Keep things conversational
Make use of bullet points
One of the most important aspects of blog writing is scannability. Readers can be lazy. Readers may be busy. Your blog article should be arranged so readers can easily extract the information they’re looking for without spending much time doing so.
What does this mean? It means short paragraphs. The five-paragraph essay is a great format for expressing yourself clearly and logically. However, it just looks too fat and ugly in a modern blog article. You should break up paragraphs that look too big and unwieldy.
This means using multiple headings and making sure that each paragraph is between one and three sentences long. The white space between short paragraphs gives the reader the impression that the article is shorter or more managable.
Headings and subheadings give readers the option of skipping content they are not interested in. The headings allow them to scan content and stop at what speaks to their needs or what answers their questions.
So, focus on writing headings structured in a way that clarifies information for readers. Resders should be able to switch from one heading to another without losing context.
6. Use AI wisely
AI is just another content-writing tool. It is not a game changer in terms of business blogging. Never mind what the tech bros and SEO whizzes say. AI remains little more than an efficient spinner of other people’s content.
Just think of a content writer who copies and pastes from another website and spends a few hours editing to make it seem original. However, in the case of AI, it doesn’t take hours. Instead, it takes minutes or in some cases seconds.
More importantly, it’s actually inferior to the result of the content writer copying and pasting and then editing. The content writer has the ability to edit and add experience, ToV, and new perspectives. AI is not capable of doing so. So, you can’t rely too heavily on AI-generated content.
So instead of simply publishing AI content directly from ChatGPT on your business blog, here’s what to do:
Always edit AI-generated content
Always rely on reliable sources to create content
Always add your unique perspective
Always edit for ToV
There’s no escaping it. AI as it exists is just a big dumb robot. It doesn’t understand ToV. It doesn’t know how to connect emotionally with other humans. No one is going to buy from a robot.
It’s one thing for someone to use AI to write an email, or a college essay, or a job application. That same person will never buy a product or a service from a business that obviously uses AI. So edit and write your content accordingly.
7. Leverage social media
Make social media a key part of your blogging strategy. It is easier said than done to be honest. Social media platforms are becoming more and more suspicious and jealous of other platforms. They make it as hard as possible to link to rival sites, including your own website.
Ever try to link out from Facebook or LinkedIn? While doing so, there is a warning that says something like, “You’re about to link out to a non-LinkedIn site. Are you sure you want to continue with this action?” In short, they make it seem like you are about to link to a virus-infected website.
This type of attitude has tangible effects. By including links to your website in your social media posts, you:
Get reduced visibility on the social media site
You experience reduced engagement
Your account may even be penalized
So how do you deal with that? First, you need to respect the nature of the social media site that you exist on. Don’t treat it as nothing more than a space to share links each time you publish a blog article.
For example, in the case of LinkedIn, they have newsletters and articles, in addition to a TL where you can make regular social media posts. Think of embedding links in LinkedIn articles and newsletters instead of TL posts. In this case, you don’t have to worry about reduced engagement and visibility.
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But no one is going to buy from a robot. You need a professional human editing touch to increase the chances of your blog article connecting emotionally with your reader. Contact one of our representatives today to help you with that —Let’s Go!
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, January 02). Business Blogging | 7 Effective Tips. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/business-blogging-7-effective-tips |
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