Although the word “blogging” can be associated with personal websites in the digital world, building a business blog actually has a number of different advantages. Not only can business blogs be an incredibly useful tool in branding your business as an authority within your industry, they can also help you to attract and engage visitors and turn them into repeat customers. Today, we’ll look at how business blogs work in more depth, as well as cover the steps you need to take to add one to your own website. Let’s get started!
If you have a Homestead Business or Business Plus package, a blog is included as something you can add to your website. With that easy-to-use blog in place, it’s time to update it with fun and informative content. There are a few different types of blog posts that you’ll want to consider adding to your publishing schedule:
Newsworthy Content In late 2011, Google released a major “Freshness” update with the goal of providing up-to-date results for specific topics. Basically, for certain search queries – like those related to conferences, major events or other time-sensitive occurrences – the search results follow a new algorithm which prioritizes timely content over articles that would otherwise rank well according to traditional SEO. Because of this – and because of the potential for your business blog to brand you as an authority in your industry – it’s a good idea to feature many articles on your blog that are related to high priority industry news. For example, if a new product or service is released in your niche, weighing in on it could help your site to get noticed in the Google SERPs faster than it would through traditional SEO.
Evergreen Content “Evergreen” content is referred to this way because it contains information that will always be useful to your website visitors. For example, if you run a website in the fashion industry, certain trends will come and go, but articles on topics like “dressing your figure” or “budget shopping techniques” will always appeal to your readers. For best results, try to structure evergreen content around good long tail keywords in your niche – that is, keywords that have consistent search volume and a low number of competing pages. As your evergreen articles get shared around the web, these back links will help your articles to maintain high positions in the search results pages, ensuring that even more traffic finds its way back to your site.
Personal Content One of the other advantages of running a business blog is that it lets your readers see “the man (or woman) behind the mask.” When you run an internet business, you aren’t able to connect with customers the way you can in a traditional offline store. This often prevents the loyalty and associations that people have with their favorite offline retailers from developing with online merchants. A business blog lets you remedy this situation by sharing elements of your personal life or personal opinions with your readers. Obviously, your business blog isn’t the best place to post on the great dinner you had, but by carefully referencing pieces of your family life or personal philosophy can help readers form a more personal connection with you and your business.
When it comes to balancing these types of blog posts, there’s no exact formula to follow to determine what percentage of different types of posts will be appropriate. If you work in a fast-paced industry where things change quickly, you may want to dedicate more of your posts to newsworthy content. On the other hand, if you work in personal development or personal finance, sharing more information about your life through personal content could be valuable.
To identify the ratio that’s right for you, track how visitors respond to specific posts on your site. If you get more comments or social shares on one type of post over another, that could be an indication that your audience prefers this type of content. By paying attention to the reaction each post gets, you’ll be able to better tailor the content on your business blog to meet the unique needs of your audience.