Note: This post was updated on September 20, 2023
If You Have a Blog That’s Not Reaching Your Goals, You Need to Change Your Blog Content Strategy
For most businesses, a blog’s primary purpose is to bring in new clientele through increased rank, social media posts, and backlinks.
Most companies these days have a blog, but if your blog isn’t getting you to your goals, it’s a waste of time. This short guide will help you determine how to set and achieve content marketing goals for your business.
Could you use a hand with your blog marketing strategy? We can help!
Just fill Out Our Contact Form or give us a call at (706) 425-1976.
What does a blog do for your business?
- It improves your SEO rank. You’ll have 434% more indexed pages and a far better chance of being ranked highly on search engines.
- It gains trust. Many people view blogs as a trusted source of information and advice, and 68.5% of consumers view a website as more credible if it has a blog.
- It makes you money! Businesses with a blog often acquire more customers. 60% of consumers find blog posts helpful in the early stages of their buying process.
Those and only 3 reasons out of dozens. In addition to the statistics above, this article gives 52 amazing reasons to blog!
Yet a blog won’t be very effective unless you have a blog content strategy.
If you’re just winging it week by week or month by month, you’re not getting much bang for your buck (even if you’re not forking out cash, you’re spending time, which is basically the same as money.)
How to make your blog REALLY work for you
8 Essential Steps to Ensure Bespoke Blog Marketing Strategy and Drive Results
1. Determine your goals
Your entire blog should revolve around the answer(s) to this: What would you like your readers to DO?
Examples include:
- Sign up for your email list
- Call to schedule an appointment
- Purchase a product online
Your blog posts should include “calls to action” that nudge your readers to take this next step.
2. Keyword research
If you don’t do keywordresearch, you won’t know what terms to include in your writing and which ones to stay away from. Read our article about keyword research tips to get you going.
3. Keyword groups and a blog content plan
Once you have your target keywords, you’ll need to:
- Group them so that you have articles you can write around each group.
- Layout a blog content plan which outlines each article title, the keywords that will go into it, and the main points to be covered.
- Create a regular posting schedule. Posting every day only to drop off for 3 weeks is not very effective.
4. Create templates
Keep your writing style and formatting consistent by structuring a few go-to templates. You can do this in Word or Google Docs and fill in each section of the template with Lorum Ipsum text.
Here are some blog template starting points from HubSpot
5. Edit your snippet
Your snippet, or meta description, will serve as a summary of your article and appear under your URL in search results. An appealing snippet makes a big difference in whether you or the next guy gets the clicks, so take the time to make it stand out.
Here’s a great article that goes over exactly what this means and how to do it
6. Use tools
They can save you tons of time and allow you to do things that you couldn’t or wouldn’t want to do manually. Think about automating things like:
- Checking your SEO with tools like Yoast
- Adding popups with tools like Sumo
- Scheduling social media posts with tools like Buffer
- So many more, like the awesome tools in this article
7. Make it actionable
A post that is a bunch of fluff will turn people away. Think about the problem your audience is trying to solve, and provide them with actionable steps toward a solution. Having a third party read your draft to provide feedback can give you extra insight.
8. Quality beats quantity
You could post every day for a year, but if your articles are poor quality (i.e., structured poorly, contain grammatical errors, or just don’t contain useful information), then they won’t do you much good.
**Bonus blog tips**
- Decide on a word count goal per article. There are guidelines for word counts that make sense given your target audience and the type of post.
- Keep your paragraphs short
- Include catchy headers
- Add alt text to your images
- Design snazzy featured images
Could you use a hand with your blog marketing strategy? We can help!
Just fill out our contact form or give us a call at (706) 425-1976.
