Does Your Business Blogging Strategy Belong In 1999? 7 Questions

Do you have a business blog? After a slow start, blogging spread rapidly during 1999 and

has continued to grow significantly in the years following. Nowadays “companies who blog

fifteen times per month generate five times more traffic” and “B2B companies that blog one

or two times per month generate 70% more leads than those that don’t” – Hubspot

Image: The 1999 Champions League Final is remembered for Manchester United scoring two

injury time goals to win 2–1 – Soccerlens.com

Many businesses choose to “wing it” when it comes to blogging

Many businesses simply hope for the best when it comes to their blogging but unfortunately

they’re really only setting themselves up to fail and when your blog fails, you fail publicly. I’m

sometimes asked to adjudicate for competitions to find the best business blogs but in reality you

don’t really need that much expertise to work out the successful business blogs from those that

aren’t.

Blogging represents a big opportunity for every business so if you’re going to

put the time and effort into writing blogs, you should want to make it the best

blog it can be.

The following are seven questions that any business or blogger should be asking before they

write that next blog:

#1. Do you realise how competitive blogging has become?

Business has become much more competitive with a great many blogs all competing for the

same audience. In 2004 there were four million blogs but by 2013 the number of blogs had

grown 3,800% to 152 million blogs. Recent updates mean that Google no longer wants you to

optimise your blogs for search engines, instead they want you to optimise for people.

#2. Do you have a well-defined strategy?

You shouldn’t be attempting to blog for business without a defined and well thought out business

blogging strategy. If you are, stop! Shift your focus to publishing blog content that will:

Attract the right people (audience, niche, thought leadership, traffic)

Build engagement levels (comments, shares, tweets)

Nurture relationships (peers, influencers, guest posting, PR)

Grow customers (prospects, conversions, enquiries, sales)

#3. Do you understand the importance of your blog’s title?

Knowing how to craft a great title so that it gets clicked on is an ultra-important blogging skill. An

outstanding title can increase tweets, likes, and traffic by 50% or more. We created theTweak

Your Biz title generator to help and here are some other resources for you to check out:

A Simple Formula for Writing Kick-Ass Titles – Hubspot

How to Write Magnetic Headlines – Copyblogger

Titles That Click: How To Write Headlines That Entice Your Audience – TweakYourBiz

#4. Do you know about and use long-tail keywords?

“One fifth of searches have never been searched before” – Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMoz.

Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific phrases. They’re less competitive to rank for

because they have less search volume to begin with.

They’re also much better for understanding user intent and therefore more actionable. They’re

the phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they’re closer to a point-of-purchase.

#5. Do you use the correct mix of topical vs. evergreen content?

Topical content/news jacking works for

short-term traffic boosts and is great for

top of mind posting. Evergreen content

remains always relevant or at least

relevant for a long time.

Evergreen requires you to put more time

and work in now and then wait to reap the

benefits. It’s the type of content that builds

upon itself slowly over time but grows a

predictable flow of website traffic.

[Right: The most popular content at

Tweak Your Biz are all evergreen blogs]

The best blogging strategy includes a mix of the two but should be heavily weighted (eighty % or

more) in favour of evergreen content.

#6. Do you blog often enough?

The best, most popular, most influential blogs produce a lot of content.

However, increasingly your blogging frequency should not come at the expense of quality.

Ideally, you need to focus on increasingly both the quality and the quantity of blogs you produce.

According to HBR, quality content is “evidence-based, useful, original and tied back to its

mission, while also being shareable.” You should aim to write many quality posts about every

topic you would like to be seen as an expert on.

While strategies such as reverse guest blogging can help you to increase frequency and quality,

the reality is that blogging done properly is a serious business. It requires an investment of time,

personal and resources to be put in place before a business can become successful.

#7. Do you understand the link between blogging and social media?

It’s worth remembering that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter primarily grew

because of blogging and do not function optimally without it. There’s very little point in investing

heavily in growing your Facebook fans or Twitter followers unless you’re already producing great

blog content.

[Below: Mykidstime use great content and their Facebook community to drive shares, traffic and

customers]

Blogging and social media are two sides of the same coin. Your blog content allows you to tap

into your social media communities. It provides the fuel that allows your fans to help grow your

brand and send traffic and customers back to your website.