Blogging Best Practices: Streamlining Content and Design for Results
January 21, 2024
Did you know companies that published more than 16 blog posts per month got almost three and half times more traffic than companies that published zero to four monthly posts? Creating fresh, valuable content like blog posts is a key inbound marketing strategy to attract visitors to your site. By consistently publishing high-quality content that engages your target audience, you can increase website traffic, generate leads, and support branding and SEO efforts. But content is just one part of an effective inbound strategy. To maximize success, it is crucial to also optimize landing pages, calls-to-action, lead nurturing tactics, email marketing, and more. With a comprehensive and integrated inbound marketing approach, content creation can become a powerful driver of measurable business results.
Blogging Best Practices
Content marketing and blogging are significant areas of focus for marketers when it comes to promoting businesses online.
Blogging shouldn't be taken lightly. If done properly, you will surely get your business more online visibility. Blogs are one of the best tools, if not the best tool, to attract leads to your site. Blogs get that organic traffic flowing in.
The best way to attract potential customers is through educational content.
You want to ensure you attract, engage and delight your leads and customers through blog content.
Blogging is a critical part of the attract stage but should not focus only on attracting a lead. You want to ensure you deliver blogs to people who are already your customers.
The purpose of blogs is to educate and to portray your business as friendly or as an advisor. This way, your content strategy can delight your customers and keep them returning for more.
Remember, the ultimate goal of having a blog should be to lead a visitor to your website and ultimately convert them into customers.
Things to Consider Before Writing Top-Performing Marketing Blogs
Before you start writing anything, you need to understand your audience. You must understand what your buyer persona wants and, specifically, their problems and needs. Then you can bring a solution tailored to their needs through your blog.
Buyer's Journey
After defining who your audience is, you must keep the buyer's journey in mind.
When you write content for your blog, keep in mind that each buyer faces different stages before making a purchasing decision. This is called the buyer's journey.
The buyer's journey is composed of three main stages:
- awareness
- consideration
- decision
You must write based on content specific to each stage. By doing this, people who view your blog feel like you are talking to them personally because you understand what they want.
What Type of Content Should You Write About During Each of These Stages?
Awareness Stage.
The content should focus on your buyer persona's concerns during this stage. For example, Sarah's boyfriend just proposed, and she is getting married. All of a sudden, she has a wedding to plan. She realizes she needs a wedding planner. In this example, she has identified her problem. The problem is she needs to look for a wedding planning company. Your blogs could revolve around things like: "Ten things that go through your mind when you just get engaged." You have identified the problem and are addressing someone who has just been proposed to. It is attractive that you have the answer for them in your blog.
Consideration Stage.
At this stage, the content you write about should be focused on providing solutions. The buyer persona is eliminating solutions that aren't a good fit. You want to be the fit in the consideration stage.
Following the example above, Sarah starts browsing for options. At this point, she is looking through different alternatives. Then, she starts asking questions to different companies trying to make the best decision and pick the one that best fits her needs.
In this stage, your blog posts could go like this: "The ultimate guide to picking the best wedding planning agency." You are giving her a solution and helping her through the process that she is going through.
Decision Stage.
In this stage, the content you create for your blogs should revolve around answering questions about your product or service.
- They have decided on a solution, method, or approach to face their problems
- They have decided to purchase from you
Sarah has picked the wedding planning company of her dreams. Ultimately, she's decided and is about to sign the contract.
With all of this in mind, you should be able to attract, engage and delight your leads and customers through your blog. Blogs during this stage could look like "What to expect from our wedding offers [step by step guide]." Remember, you are engaging with Sarah giving her information on what to expect while she goes through the entire process with your company. Start this blog with impressive statistics highlighting significant benefits.
Be sure to recognize that having a blog online has more than one benefit.