business owner’s guide to successful blogging · table of contents expresswriters.com 1...

THE FAST-PACED BUSINESS OWNER’S GUIDE TO

SUCCESSFUL BLOGGINGIN JUST 5 MINUTES A DAY

By Julia McCoy

ExpressWriters

Table of Contents

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INTRODUCTION 2

Part 1:Why Do You Need To Start a Business Blog? 31A: Blogging Drives More Traffic To Your Site 31B: Blogging Will Help With Search Engine Results 41C. Looking At Our Own Case Study 51D: Blogging Sets You Up as an Industry Authority. 6

Part 2:How Can You Get Shares and 7 Generate More Traffic to Your Blogs?Part 2A: Social Media is the Key to Shares and Traffic 7Part 2B: Create Infographics to Share on Your Blog 9

Part 3:What Are the Essentials 10When Setting Up Your Business Blog?Part 3A: Set Up a Wordpress Blog for the Best Blogging Experience. 10Part 3B: Know Your Audience Before You Start Writing. 11Part 3C: Hire a Blog Writer to Create Powerful Blogs. 12Part 3D: Use Social Sharing Buttons on Each Blog. 12Part 3E: Creating Long Form Evergreen Content is Powerful 13

Part 4:How Can You Spend Only 145 Minutes a Day on Your Blog?Part 4A: Professional Industry Copywriters Write 14 Specifically for Your Product/Niche.

Part 4B: The Checklist to Get the Best Writer for

Your Business. 14

Part 5:Just What Should Your Blog Be About? 17Part 5A: Why Blogging Does Not Only 17 Have to be About Products

Part 5B: Real Life Lessons from a Client Example 18

CONCLUSION 22

IntroductionYour business is popping – you’ve got great products, an awesome client base, but you know there’s more you can do.

Do you pay more for advertisements? Do you invest in PPC campaigns? What about PR?

While these are awesome, they aren’t going to be near as impactful as one simple thing – blogging regularly on your own site.

That’s right, having a blog for your business is the ultimate way to get awesome traffic and SEO results. Let’s take a look inside. I promise you'll have a blueprint to successful blogging with a simple 5-minute (or less) daily investment!

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CEO, EXPRESS WRITERSBY JULIA MCCOY

Why Do You Need to Start a Business Blog?

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You take a look at your business, and you start wondering, “Do I really need a blog? Will it actually work?”

Short answer: yes!

Long answer: blogging is so important to every single business, and many miss out on great opportunities without one.

There are great reasons such as driving awesome traffic to your website, converting visitors into leads, and setting you up as a trusted authority within your industry, no matter what.

Let’s look at this a bit more in-depth.

Part 1A: Blogging DrivesMore Traffic to Your Site

“Blogging doesn’t just drive traffic to your website, in fact about 55% of businesses that utilize a blog see a huge increase in traffic.”

Part 1

RICK BURNES VIA HUBSPOTVP OF CONTENT PRODUCTS, BOOKBUB

“61% of people have bought products because of a business’ blog.”NEIL PATEL VIA QUICKSPROUT

CO-FOUNDER OF CRAZY EGG, HELLO BAR

These are great incentives to getting a business blog, right? If you are still wavering on just how important a blog can be when it comes to traffic, let’s look at a few other factors.

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Part 1

Part 1:Why Do You Need to Start a Business Blog?

of clients said they feel more positively about a business if they have a great blog, and 70% of people will learn about a company through blogs instead of ads.

Blogs can help convince many consumers that your business is worth it. Partly because they will feel like they matter since you’ve taken the time to write blogs about what interests them.

They also like to see a business with a blog because it will instill trust that your business is legitimate and current.

Now, just how does blogging drive this huge increase in traffic to sites?

By adding a great opportunity for SEO (see Shopify’s piece about this) and also focusing on generating leads when visitors click on your links.

60%

And let me tell you, those relationships are what can make or break a business, and you want to make sure you stay successful for a very long time.

Your blogs give you the opportunity to tell a story, show off products, and help out every single customer, which helps immensely when trying to create client-business relationships. “ If you are a local company, blogging can also

help you increase your traffic with local SEO tagging opportunities.”CHRIS SILVER SMITHPRESIDENT OF ARGENT MEDIA

Blogging is amazing when it comes to helping with SEO and search engine results. It is the champion of letting Google realize your business is tops and deserves a great rank on the SERPs.

Part 1B: Blogging Will HelpWith Search Engine Results

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Part 1


At my company, Express Writers, we focus on great blogging – so much so that it’s about 99% of the new traffic to our website, and a way we generate our leads.

We see around 500 to 700 individual visits daily to our blogs. I like to think that’s a fair amount of traffic for a four-year-old writing business! In addition to the amount of traffic we get, we also have a pretty great standing: 100 of our 165 indexed keywords are ranking in the top 10 positions on SEMRush. That’s the power of blogging and great content for you.

Part 1C: Looking At Our Own Case Study

Using one of the most popular blogging platforms, Wordpress, is highly recommended: Wordpress blogs are easily ranked in Google, and come with all kinds of plugins to help you with SEO. Don't settle for anything less than Wordpress for your blog.

I plan on talking about Wordpress later on, so keep your eyes peeled from some great nuggets of information, later.

And FYI, I’m not just saying that blogging matters for SEO without any sort of concrete proof.

Sure, I can provide you with countless studies other companies have done, but what about when it comes to my own blog? How successful have I been in the SEO rankings?

For more on our recent rankings analysis, see our Power of Copywriting & Content Marketing (Case Study).

When you start to truly focus on blogging, you too can end up seeing some great SEO results.

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Part 1


Part 1D: Blogging Sets You Up as an Industry Authority.

What’s another great reason to have a business blog?

“ You don’t need to promote yourself too much; just let your blogs do the talking for you. When you focus on

building long lasting client-business relationships, you will notice that more and more people trust you.”STEVE OLENSKI VIA FORBES

SENIOR WRITER AT ORACLE MARKETING CLOUD

How Can You Get Shares and Generate More Traffic to Your Blogs?

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How do you use social media to generate traffic?And what are some other ways to get more visits? Let’s take a look!

Part 2

“53% of Americans say that they are more loyal to brands they follow on social media, which makes it vital for your business.”JAYSON DEMERSFOUNDER, CEO AT AUDIENCEBLOOM

A great way to generate more traffic to your blog is to make sure you implement social media features.

“Include visuals, epic headlines, and find the sweet spot for social media sharing.”NEAL SCHAFFER

FOUNDER, MAXIMIZE SOCIAL BUSINESS & SOCIAL TOOLS SUMMIT

Gaining traffic to your site and blogs can be easy when you use social media. There are several ways it can help, and all you need to do is take a few simple steps.

Part 2A: Social Media is the Key to Shares and Traffic

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Part 2

Part 2:Social Media is the Key to Shares and Traffic

Buffer did an amazing analysis in June 2015 of over

4.8 million tweets,and discovered that tweets sent out around 2 a.m. seemed to do the best in terms of click-throughs.

There are many other ways you can use social media to drive traffic, which means that it needs to be a big part of your blogging strategy.

When using social media, you will want to make sure you know just how well you are doing, and make any necessary tweaks.

You can do this by using tools from your chosen social media channel to see just how much of an impact you are having.

“The Biggest Social Media Science Study: What 4.8 Million Tweets Say About the Best Time to

Tweet.”KEVAN LEE

“By using social media analytics, you can target specific audiences to bring in exactly who you want.”KRISTINA CISNERO

INBOUND MARKETING SPECIALIST, HOOTSUITE

CONTENT CRAFTER AT BUFFER

Part 2

Part 2:Social Media is the Key to Shares and Traffic

Don’t let social media go to waste when you could be driving traffic to your business by sharing blogs and growing your audience!

When you start targeting the right audiences, your blog traffic will increase and more people will make their way to your products. Blogging and social media will greatly help you have a successful Internet presence, and help your business up the ladder to amazing results.

When creating and sharing infographics, you should always remember to include a transcript of the infographic copy in your blog for SEO purposes and also include an embedded code for your fans to share. You can use various tools online (see Michael G. Keating’s tool) to help get an embed code, too.

I love infographics and so do our clients. I like to think of them as the “visual blogs” on the web. These visually enticing pieces can convince almost anyone to stop and read.

Part 2B: Create Infographics to Share on Your Blog

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What Are the EssentialsWhen Setting Up Your Business Blog?

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There are several things you can do when writing a blog, but let’s take a look at some of the essentials.

First, I’d like to point you to a great blog resource over at Hubspot by Rachel Sprung about how to write a blog with a formula and headlines you can start using now.

See How to Write a Blog Post: A Simple Formula + 5 Free Blog Post Templates.

Here are a few essentials you definitely need to consider when approaching your business blog.

Wordpress is an excellent place to start when blogging and is vital for your business blog.

3A: Set Up a Wordpress Blog for the Best Blogging Experience

Part 3

“As of 2014, Wordpress is powering over 20% of business sites, and it is only growing in popularity.”HARSH AGRAWAL

AWARD WINNING BLOGGER & OWNER OF SHOUTMELOUD


New to the process of Wordpress blogging?

Check out this great SEO help guide and guide on SEO plugins that help make Wordpress an absolutely powerful platform for your blog.

You’ll see a lot of wonderful results when you use Wordpress, and it is also incredibly easy to use. You can select themes, and even make customizations as you get used to it.

As your blog (and business) grows, I suggest bringing in a good web designer who can help you create a more beautiful website and blog for your readers and clients.

It will greatly benefit your click-throughs, duration of visits, and engagement.

3B: Know Your AudienceBefore You Start Writing

HARRIET CUMMINGSCOPY EDITOR AT DISTILLED

Part 3:What Are the Essentials When Setting Up Your Business Blog?

Part 3

“Knowing your audience is crucial when writing excellent blog content. This Marketing Land author has a great

checklist for researching your readership correctly.”You should make sure you always know what questions you are going ask, whether you are asking yourself or your audience, and get ready to take plenty of notes.

In addition, Search Engine Journal has a great guide on how to create audience personas to help your marketing.

If getting all the essentials for your blog is becoming overwhelming, never fear. This is the perfect opportunity to hire a blog writer or copywriting professional.

He or she will know exactly what needs to be done and can help you create epic content that will reach out to your intended audience.

You won’t have to worry about making sure your grammar is correct, worrying that you misspelled a word or wondering just how long your content should be.

A content writer can help you determine length, and he or she will always make sure your blogs are grammatically correct, with no spelling errors.

3C: Hire a Blog Writer to Create Powerful Blogs

You want your blogs to get shared because that is what will help drive up your traffic. But how can you get people to share your blogs?

One main way is to include social sharing buttons on each blog. This can help encourage readers to share immediately when they read something they enjoy.

Placing social share buttons on your blogs isn’t too difficult, especially if you use a blog site such as Word press. You can install a plugin that adds those on easily.

Once you have social share buttons available, the plugin will gather all the data necessary when someone clicks to tweet, update Facebook, pin to Pinterest, and more.

3D: Use Social Sharing Buttons on Each Blog



Part 3

SHARING SHARING

SHARING SHARING



3E: Creating Long Form Evergreen Content is Powerful

“The average length of the top blogs researched online is about 2500 words, which is a good indication that

people do, in fact, like longer blogs.”DARREN ROWSECEO OF PROBLOGGER

When you create content, trendy pieces will get an initial spike in traffic, but it will eventually lose views and clicks.

This is why it is essential to create evergreen content as it gets consistent views. When you write your evergreen content, make sure you write some long form pieces.

Having many different content lengths is an important part of blogging, but you should make sure that you are balancing with a good, healthy mix of in-depth, well researched pieces.

An in-depth piece can be great for giving your clients excellent information, and helping to set you up as a trusted source.

Part 3


There's a secret I'm going to break to you. Did you know that hundreds of businesses today(even many in your niche) are only spending 5 minutes a day on their blog?

Does that sound too good to be true?

Well, don’t worry; it is completely true! I'm going to show you their process and how you can spend this amount of time.

How Can You Spend Only 5 Minutes a Day on Your Blog?

4A: Professional Industry CopywritersWrite Specifically for Your Product/Niche.

Most businesses will end up in some form or other marketing to a niche audience.

This means you need to make sure your write blogs to reach the niche industry you have, in order to drive excellent traffic.

Just how can you do this? I have the answer for you. By hiring industry copywriters who know your industry well, as well as writers with a fundamental, strong knowledge of how to write epic Internet content.

But, you immediately say, how the heck can someone create my voice? How can they speak for me? What if they can't read my mind?

Calm that voice, stay with me, and keep reading.

The secret to spending 5 minutes a day for a successful blog lies in finding the right writer for your business.

Not just any writer. The right writer will be able to "read your mind" - at least that's the way you'll feel when you read their first post.

I'll let you in on another secret: their written content may even be better than what you could ever write for your own blog.

There are some great ways to find the best writer, and I am going to give you a handy checklist that can make it significantly easier.

4B: The 3-Step-Checklist to Get the Best Writer for Your Business

Part 4

Part 4:How Can You Spend Only 5 Minutes a Day on Your Blog?


Headlines are important for your blog and on social media, because they will be what captures a reader’s attention.

Get them in with great headlines, and make sure your blogger can match the headlines with well-written copy in the body.

When you have a writer send in topics for suggestions, consider asking him or her to write each topic in the form of a headline. This will help you see just how well the writer can craft headlines, and if the headlines are something you find interesting or boring.

There are great tools to help, not only with topic generation but suggestions on creating blog headlines. Check out this cool tool I love: HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator.

This can help you know if the writer will work for your industry. Don’t hesitate to throw in a few ideas to help the writer, but make sure they give you the right type of topics for your industry.If you find that the writer is missing your industry with his or her topics, consider giving a few pointers or simply move on to the next writer. You want to make sure you have the best one for your needs.

1. Have Your Writer Give Examples of Topics They Will Write On

2. They Need to Write Great Headlines and Have Well Written Copy

Why do you need a blogger who can write great headlines? Because, according to Copyblogger, 8 out of 10 people will only read headline copy

Part 4


And if content today is the basis of SEO, a team of writers (with high standards) rather than one can be your better investment because the management will ensure their writers stay up-to-date on the latest correct SEO content tactics.

Be able to rest knowing that you have a copywriter who makes sure your blogs have an amazing impact that can help drive more and more traffic to your site.

This is still an important aspect for blogs and web content, so your blogger needs to know and understand it.

3. They Need to be Knowledgeable in SEO 4. Bloggers Who Can Do Great Image Creation

JIM YUCEO OF BRIGHTEDGE

“SEO was integral in bringing in 85% of new clients to websites in 2014, and you still need it now.”

Images are an important aspect of any blog and social media campaign and your writer needs to know how to do image creation.

There are great, helpful image creation tools out there to help you create awesome blogs. I suggest Canva or PicMonkey, which can make it easy to create a blog and social media image.

My team uses Canva to create our blog images, which makes our blogs stand out. Check out this visually striking image for one of our blogs on storytelling: 5 Easy Ways to Weave Beautiful Storytelling Into Your Content.

JEFF BULLASBLOGGER, AUTHOR, STRATEGIST,

SPEAKER, OWNER OF JEFFBULLAS.COM

“Articles with images get 94% more views than those without. And over 60% of customers say that

they will definitely contact a business that has an image that pops up in the search engine.”

Part 4:How Can You Spend Only 5 Minutes a Day on Your Blog?

Part 4


Just What Should Your Blog Be About?Your blog doesn’t just have to incorporate your products, but can be on a broad range of topics. In fact, this is a great way to create powerful blogs that are going to drive traffic and encourage people to share on social media.

Here are a few of the many things your blogs can be about, helping you get some awesome content to share with your clients.

5A: Why Blogging Does Not Only Have to be About Products

There are so many things you can do with your blogs. As I said earlier, you don’t just have to write about your products, but can do so much more. Just what can you do?

Some of the things you can do include writing news pieces, as well as doing features on products and services, and writing on any product launches coming down the line.

In addition, you can do DIY posts, how-to posts, & many more in this style.

Creating useful blogs that aren’t just based on your products and services is a great way to provide useful content to your customers. When they get useful content that doesn’t sound like sales material, they might just be more likely to start journeying around your blog, and eventually making a purchase.

Part 5


Part 5:Just What Should Your Blog Be About?

I visited a toy “library” not too long ago with my baby daughter. It was a pretty awesome little place – a lending library for toys, store, and kids’ events and play place habitat. We of course loved the place. Truth be told, I don’t know who liked it more. I was playing with the toys too.

I got to talking with the owner. And while this nice lady easily knew how much everyone loves toys, she didn’t know if clients would really get much out of it if she created a blog for her site. She asked what I could do for her.

Here was the curveball – she had the best ranking already on Google for her city, and didn’t care to rank any further. I doubt the majority of businesses are that that happy with rankings!

5B: Real Life Lessons from a Client Example

I can go on and on about how important blogging is, and give you countless statistics to show it is integral, but sometimes we all need to see a real example.

While working in the content marketing world, I’ve come across many clients who wonder just how a blog can help their particular business. Many think they are too niche or unimportant for that.

But of course, I show them just how untrue that is.

I’d like to tell you a story

Part 5


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I suggested creating a blog and starting with just a few postings a week, depending on the scope of ideas she wanted and how often she wanted people to read her blog. I discussed using her events as blog fodder, creating recaps as well as blogs to talk about new toys added to her library, the benefits of specific toys, and more.

Now, let’s think of you for a second. Your reason for blogging could be anything, but probably has to do something with either SEO rankings or improving your audience engagement—or both. At this point in my book, you know the importance of blogging and you have a grasp on how to blog.

But what if you just don’t have many ideas, or aren’t sure how to go about it? You know that it will easily take you more than 5 minutes just to come up with new topics.

Let’s look at how to blog in less than 5 minutes a day—my favorite point here—by utilizing a great writing company (or writer, or agency: you pick, I just want to show you the best way to save time while still running a great blog).

Back to my story. For this particular client, we could come up with great topics for an easy 10 first blogs. Then we’d show them to the client for approval, and from there, her best-fit writer would write up the blogs and they’d be scheduled out –which we could fully manage.

Part 5

Here are ten topic ideas I came up with:

Your Guide To Choosing {Holiday Specific} Toys This {Holiday} / Can do Girl & Boy variation

How to Create an Amazing Toy Room / Can do Girl & Boy variation

Which Toys are the Best for Your 5-Year-Old? / Can do Girl & Boy variation

May – Upcoming {X Event} at the Toy Library

Toy Feature: {One Toy} with a Feature Story

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

Why You Should Donate to a Toy Drive

Why Are Sensory Toys So Important For Babies?

How to Throw an Epic Favorite Toy-Themed Birthday Party For Your 3-Year-Old

10 Easy Ways to Keep Your Children’s Toys Organized

5 Great Toy Games for the Whole Family (Not Just Your Tots!)


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Do you think she would approve a few from this list?

That’s all she would need to do. Approve written topics, and add any insights. I’m serious – at the max that process would take her 5 minutes a day.

Probably less going forward, as she needed less revisions and we got to understand her style, values, and preferences.

We work on understanding her site, what she does, and what kind of content her audience will enjoy, first. The only extra work is if she chooses an event blog. And in that case, all she needs to do is spend no more than 5-10 minutes for that blog (in a week’s period, if she has one event per week) to send us some pictures, title of the event, and a quick bulletin skeleton of what it was for.

The heavy lifting of her blogging is all hands-off, but she was involved and her original ideas included. The only difference for some businesses would be getting higher level writers who can talk correctly to, say, a technical or legal audience. That can be a discussion you have with the writer or agency you hire. Usually an agency will have those on staff; and if you've hired a good writer, they've probably written in that specific audience before or can refer you to an audience specific writer friend.

This can be replicated for every kind of business.

The only difference for some businesses would be getting higher level writers who can talk correctly to, say, a technical or legal audience.

Part 5

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To end this…

I’ve watched a lot of business owners struggle through blogging.

They’ll do it themselves, with that first cup of coffee in the morning.

Reality hits. There’s always something in the way.

You’re not the Staff Editor or Content Officer at your own company, are you?

This is not a one-man job, people. And you won’t be the minority if you admit that.

But as you can tell, blogging for your business is one of the best things you can do. I already showed you how well it’s working for me.

So, by now, you know the process I recommend—after working for years now in the content marketing and online writing world.

I think this is the path for all businesses to create and publish beautiful, effective blogs, without pulling chunks out of their valuable, essential business building time.

Use that checklist I gave you and start finding your best-fit writer team—and within a few days I bet you can publish your first blog.

ConclusionGet The Most Amazing Success Online With Blogging

ExpressWriters

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