The 5 W's of a Successful Business Blog

The 5 W's of a Successful Business Blog

At last count, there were over 152,000,000 blogs on the internet with a new one being created every half a second. Blogs come in many shapes and sizes, offering everything from entertaining content to information and education to news and just about anything you could ever dream up. For businesses, blogs provide an avenue to both engage with existing customers and to attract new prospects from anywhere in the world. Blogging is absolutely essential to the success of your organization. Read on for the why, what, where, when & how of blogging for your organization.

Why You Should Blog

There are countless reasons why business blogs are so important. Let’s take a look at some of the more astounding statistics.

Companies that blog have 55% more visitors and 97% more inbound links than those that don’t. With the increase in social media and the explosion of mobile content, those numbers will continue to soar.

In addition, 60% of consumers say they feel more confident about a brand after reading their blog, while 61% have made a purchase as a direct result of reading a business blog post.

If growth and future success are on your list of goals, you absolutely, positively must have a business blog.

What You Should Blog

70% of consumers say they learn more about a company by reading its articles than by viewing its ads. What’s more, 82% of people say they enjoy reading relevant content from company blogs. In other words, blogging is an absolute necessity for your business. It’s where your customers are, and it’s where you should be meeting and educating them.

How You Should Blog

Of course, knowing you need to blog and actually doing so successfully are two entirely different things. As with anything else in business, there is a certain technique to getting the most out of your blogging efforts. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Produce quality content. You can post 6 times a day and optimize to the nines, but if the content is lousy, nobody will read it and you’ll have wasted valuable time and resources. Give your readers what they want by answering their questions, addressing their pain points, offering tips and how-to’s and anything else that you feel your readers would appreciate. Analyze how past posts performed to see what topics got the most attention, or better yet – just ask your readers what they’d like to see more of!
• Vary the length of your posts. While shorter blog posts are ok and great for filler material when you don’t have a lot of time but want to update frequently, longer posts are more effective in attracting valuable back links. Aim for a longer post every week or so.
• Always include at least one picture to go along with your blog. Research has shown that blogs with images get an incredible 94% more total views. That’s an easy way to improve performance.
• Sharing is caring. 41.67% of people consider a blog post more influential when it’s shared on social media. To encourage more social shares, provide content that your readers will find of value and make it easy by including share buttons right within your post.
• Enlist the help of experts. _While guest blogging may no longer be valuable from an SEO standpoint, it can add tremendous credibility to your blog and foster a deeper sense of trust among your audience. Invite industry experts to weigh in from time to time to spice things up on your blog.

Where You Should Blog

The best place to share your advice is your own blog. Think of it as your oxygen mask, put your own on before assisting others. Once you have reached a regular steady cadence, consider reaching out to external blogs that cater to your industry. Many external blogs will also let you syndicate your content elsewhere. Just make sure to check that the external blog doesn't require exclusive content before syndicating.

When You Should Blog

How often you post, and when you do so also play a critical role in how well your blog will perform. For instance, blogs that are updated daily receive 5 times more visits than those that are only updated weekly. Additionally, daily blog posts generate 4 times more leads than less frequent ones.

Timing is also important. Studies have shown that people are most likely to read blog posts on Monday mornings. Similarly, blogs posted on Thursdays tend to receive the most social shares. While you want to post throughout the week, make sure you’re taking advantage of these prime times by scheduling your most prominent posts to be published on Mondays and Thursdays.

Blogging should be an integral part of your overall marketing strategy. It’s where your customers and prospects are, and a valuable tool to help grow and expand your business as we push further on into the digital age. Not blogging yet? Get started today. Your audience is waiting.