Your company has decided to start a blog and you’ve been charged with responsibility for its content. You’ve talked with your website developer and set up the platform tools you’ll need. The technology is all in place – what happens next? You might think writing but the answer should be planning.
Whether you have a blog writing team or will be writing all the posts yourself, it’s important to do some planning to incorporate other opinions before you create your first blog title. TBH Creative writes blogs for a number of our clients (as ghost writers we’re sworn to secrecy but trust us… we write a lot of blog articles) and we have three straightforward tips to get your blog started on the best foot.
A blog filled with posts that are nothing more than marketing collateral is not a good blog. You need to break out of the marketing box and think about how your blog can support those efforts while also creating useful, interesting content that your clients and prospective clients want to read. If you create that compelling content you’ll find that you are increasing your brand awareness with your target market, drawing them back to your site more often (where they will see your digital marketing efforts) and reaching new prospects who may otherwise never have heard of your company.
So before you start writing, spend some time with your marketing team to discuss what you want your blog to communicate. Learn about your target audience so you can write content specifically for them. Research search engine optimization (SEO) targets and see what ideas they spark. Start to build a plan – an editorial calendar – to guide your blogging efforts. Use this checklist to get your editorial planning started:
Now that you have the start of an editorial calendar, it’s time to get a little more specific. What key points should each of those brainstormed articles communicate? Find experts on the topic and ask questions. Talk to your sales and customer service people to find out the comments and responses they are hearing on a regular basis. Reach out to a few hand-picked customers and spend some time getting to know what they want and need to learn related to your company’s offerings. If you have an active Facebook or Twitter community – post a poll asking a question or two that can help you dig a little deeper into a potential article topic.
In short, don’t work in a vacuum and don’t trust that you know it all. You’ve taken the time to build a list of goals related to the new blog resource. Now is the time to fill in the details so you can hit the ground running… or in this case writing.
You might also like:
Whether you have a blog writing team or will be writing all the posts yourself, it’s important to do some planning to incorporate other opinions before you create your first blog title. TBH Creative writes blogs for a number of our clients (as ghost writers we’re sworn to secrecy but trust us… we write a lot of blog articles) and we have three straightforward tips to get your blog started on the best foot.
Brainstorm with your marketing team.
A blog filled with posts that are nothing more than marketing collateral is not a good blog. You need to break out of the marketing box and think about how your blog can support those efforts while also creating useful, interesting content that your clients and prospective clients want to read. If you create that compelling content you’ll find that you are increasing your brand awareness with your target market, drawing them back to your site more often (where they will see your digital marketing efforts) and reaching new prospects who may otherwise never have heard of your company.
So before you start writing, spend some time with your marketing team to discuss what you want your blog to communicate. Learn about your target audience so you can write content specifically for them. Research search engine optimization (SEO) targets and see what ideas they spark. Start to build a plan – an editorial calendar – to guide your blogging efforts. Use this checklist to get your editorial planning started:
- How many articles per month will you write? (Be realistic.)
- How many will directly tie into sales efforts?
- How many will be focused on relevant, helpful information that is of use to your clients?
- What are the hot button issues for your clients?
- How can you leverage industry news?
- What SEO keywords do you need to target?
- What other elements will be needed for posts? Graphic calls to action? Photos or other images?
Bounce ideas off others.
In short, don’t work in a vacuum and don’t trust that you know it all. You’ve taken the time to build a list of goals related to the new blog resource. Now is the time to fill in the details so you can hit the ground running… or in this case writing.
Plan for success.
Don’t leave your blog hanging out to dry. Just because a blog exists, doesn’t mean your clients and prospects will find it. When you build your editorial calendar, include tasks to promote your blog. Tie the blog into the website (and not just with a menu item). Leverage your social media to spread the word about your blog each time you post an article. Consider adding an RSS feed option so people can subscribe to your blog. Incorporate automated email workflows to share your blog posts. Utilize the SEO research you did earlier to accurately promote your blog articles. The best blog writing won’t help your digital marketing efforts if you don’t plan ways to make it successful.Bonus Tip: Be consistent!
Having a blog with content that is months old says volumes about your company – and none of it is good. Take the time to build an editorial calendar that is manageable and stick to it! Soon you’ll be benefitting from a repository of useful articles and adding pages that boost your search engine rank position (SERP) for related key terms.You might also like:
- Tips for writing an effective blog post
- Boost your digital marketing with an editorial calendar
- Five habits for highly effective content marketing
