The key to getting visitors to your website is generating quality content from your website which you can share on your social media channels. The business blog is one of the proven ways to get website traffic.
Blogs allow you to educate the public about your product, engage the public with conversation about the product and then sell your product to the public. These blogs can be written, or video or combination of both. We will focus on written blogs here.
A strong business blog should contain these elements:
1. One topic each blog: There are probably hundreds of topics in your industry. However, a blog should focus only on one specific topic. Additionally, that topic should be one in which the author is familiar with from a business standpoint. (Avoid personal blogs that are not related to your business.)
2. Use a keyword phrase in the title and body of the blog: Compile a list of keyword phrases from your industry. Make sure those phrases match up with your website landing pages. For instance, a car repair service center could write a blog on “How to install an alternator in a Volvo.” This covers “install an alternator” as a repair service and “Volvo” if the owner is trying to bring in Volvo owners. Or it could be titled “The Five Steps to Installing an Alternator,” for a generic blog. Either way, this covers the keywords in the title. The body of the blog would also include the keyword phrases. Keyword phrases in blogs are crawled by the search engines and should help move the website up in the search engine results. If your topic is not step-by-step as the above illustration, then write empathetic content that appeals to the reader (your demographic). Understand your readers’ interests and how they think about the topic.
3. Use a high-resolution image(s): All of your photographs (images) used for the blog should be high-resolution. Avoid using grainy, out-of-focus photos. Also, use photos that have been cropped carefully and that they do not have a copyright. (If copyright, get permission to use it.)
4. Add alt tags to the images: Alt tags (text) should be a brief description and the name of the company. The alt tag is used by search engines within an HTML code that describes the appearance and function of an image on the page. The description can be for this image: “Mama’s Hot Pancakes Breakfast All Day Restaurant”.
5. Add authoritative links: Link some of your content to a third party source that is not a competitor. For instance, if you are doing a blog on windows that are airtight and impervious to storms, link that content to a website that talks about storms in that area where your company sells windows. This link to an authoritative website will be appreciated by the reader as you are providing them content that adds to their knowledge and also buttresses your points about your product.
6. Avoid sales language: Most blog readers go to blogs to learn something not to be bludgeoned by heavy sales language and manipulative content. As soon as the reader goes to a blog and realizes it is only a sales vehicle dropped into the “blog” page of a website, they will feel betrayed and may never return. Blogs are not for heavy sales content. They function, as we have said, as a way to educate and engage the reader. Stay away from using them as a place to dump heavy sales jargon and images. The search engines will see that, too, and penalize the website for it.
7. Add locators: Let the reader and the search engines know where you are located and your service areas. Be sure to include your city and service area in the call-to-action paragraph and elsewhere in the blog, if necessary. It can be something like: “Joe’s Auto Service Center is located in Charlottesville, VA and serves the Central Virginia area.”
8. Add a “call-to-action” paragraph at the conclusion: After you have educated the reader, it is recommended that a “call-to-action” paragraph is added to the conclusion of the blog. This paragraph should include the company name, phone number, email address, location, link to the website service page or the page that corresponds with the topic and an appeal to contact the company. This is the place in your blog where you want to do your sales. They have read your blog, like what you have written and are interested in your services. They can contact you now and you can sell to them!
9. 500 words to 1,500 words: The blog should have at least 500 words for Google to find it. It can be up to 1,500 words or more, though you want to avoid wordiness and fluff. Make sure your blog has been edited and that the grammar and punctuation are correct.
Business blogs are excellent ways for you to contribute to the digital content marketplace. If you aren’t doing them now, start. If you are doing them, continue. They never run out of value in the search engines.
Philip Day Communications can write authoritative and entertaining blogs for your company using keyword phrases, images and basic search engine optimization (SEO). Contact us at (434) 227-7829 or at philip@philipdaycommunications.com. We serve Charlottesville, VA., Richmond, Va., Washington, D.C. and the USA.