Writing Blogs – Do’s and Don’ts

Keeping an active blog is fast becoming one of the most important ways to draw attention to your business and attract new clients.

One of our clients, for whom we write 5 blogs a week, has gained over 46,000 hits on just one blog post and is the most popular page after the homepage.

It sounds fairly easy to write a blog. I mean it’s just writing about what you know…isn’t it?

In a word…yes…and no. Of course, it is about letting people know what you and your company are about, but it is also about capturing their attention by highlighting and informing them about what they want to know….not necessarily what you want to tell them.

It’s a given that you know your stuff. That is the reason you do it for a living. The easy thing would be to write about all your services and how great they are. Unfortunately, that is often not what people want to read and won’t get them flocking to your blog.

Punchy and with a point

Your writing should be varied and be a mixture of interesting items from your industry, tips, advice and what you’re up to. Of course, if you have an occasional promotion you want to draw to people’s attention, then you can shout about it, just don’t make it the subject of everything you post.

You also need to get to the point fairly quickly, starting with an imaginative and ‘eye-catching’ blog title. When thinking of a title, you must use the same principles. What do people actually want to know? What are the difficulties my audience are having in business and how can I alleviate them. Do this, and potential customers will become drawn to your blog.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

For SEO purposes you should write a minimum of 300 words, but for real quality and ranking, Google likes to see 500 words minimum for a blog post. If you want to get real bonus points though, the more comprehensive, the better. For instance, 2000 – 3000 words tells Google you are really serious! All of the top 10 spots in Google have a minimum of 1000 for competitive terms, so keep that in mind.

The SEO benefits of having a blog on your website are significant. The regularly changing and unique content that a blog offers, helps to boost your website’s Google ranking. So much so, that content marketing is the way most businesses now conduct their SEO.

Keep posting

There is no point in posting every now and again, for many reasons. The main one, however, is that your customers will not see you as open for business. Two posts per week will usually suffice. You can do more, but see this as a minimum. It is a good idea to schedule your posts in your diary/online calendar and always be on the lookout for a subject your target audience will be interested in.

If you are really serious about getting noticed, then posting at least five days a week might even get you picked up by Google News, which would give your site authority a major boost. Google’s news and search algorithms differ from each other, as the news algorithm criteria include factors like volume of production, length of publication (the longer the better) and user clicks.

Google news boasts on average around 1 billion unique visitors per week. That’s some heavy duty authority for your business website.

If this is going to be a bit difficult to fit in around your busy working day, you can employ someone (like us wink! wink!) to help lift the burden.

Engage with your customers

Blog posts allow comments underneath and it can’t be underestimated how valuable this function is. People can not only leave comments but also ask questions and this is all done in public. Answering questions and helping people without the question of money entering the conversation, will illustrate not only your knowledge and authority in your field but also your desire to help. It is truly a powerful advertisement for your business.

Make or Break

A blog can literally make or break your business. A good one will more than prove it’s worth both financially and socially and have you talking regularly with a captivated and loyal audience. A poor one won’t do much at all.

The type you run is really down to you and will be based on the thought and effort that is put into it. Never has the adage “you get out what you put in” been more apt.