Starting a blog for your business is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. It’s not enough to start a blog and add new content whenever you happen to get around to it…
Instead, you must approach business blogging like a military leader heading into battle. If you aren’t strategic in developing a blog for your business, your chances of succeeding are slim.
Integrate the following business blogging tips into your strategy and there’s a good chance you can dominate your competitors when it comes to informational offerings and supercharged SEO.
How to Start a Successful Business Blog
1) Understanding the importance of search engine optimization is critical if you want to succeed in blogging for your business. You must understand the types of words potential customers use when searching for a business like yours online and how they phrase their questions.
With mobile search dominating the consumer markets, there are a growing number of people using digital assistants or “voice search,” thus impacting your SEO strategy.
2) If you want to dominate your competitors with your business’ blog, doesn’t it make sense to investigate what your competition is blogging about? Competition analysis is critical if you want to build a thriving blog for your business. One of my favorite ways to use the competition’s data is the Skyscraper Technique. This technique involves collecting all of the key points from top ranked blogs for your target keyword.
Track the topics your competitors write about. Take note of the types of images they use, and make your images even better (use tools like Piktochart, Crello, and Canva).
Monitor how many social shares their blog posts receive (Buzzsumo.com works well for this) and who is sharing their content. The more you understand about the blogging strategies of your competitors, the better prepared you’ll be to create a content marketing strategy for your company that surpasses their efforts.
Don’t be happy just to equal what they’re doing; focus on creating a business blog that knocks theirs out of the proverbial water.
3) For business builders who want to create a blog that gains traction and is shared online by multiple readers, influencer outreach is crucial. Smart business bloggers know how to attract influencers to their blog and garner the attention of industry insiders. If you want your business’ blog to be successful from the start, consider incorporating quotes from insiders into your blog posts.
When you quote an industry influencer and let them know on social media they’ve been quoted in your blog post, there’s an excellent chance they’ll share your blog post with their extended network. Not only does this draw fresh eyeballs to your business’ blog, it improves your SEO too. The more times your blog posts are shared by influencers online, the greater your chances of search engines ranking your blog as quality content. You’ll have stroked the ego of an influencer and increased your odds of improved SERP (search engine ranking placement) scores at the same time. Can you say #winning?
4) To ensure your blogging domination efforts are rewarded, develop a strategic social media plan. Track who is sharing the blog posts of your competitors online and which blog posts they’re sharing (app.buzzsumo.com/research/most-shared). Check to see who retweets each of your competitors’ blog posts on Twitter and who likes their content on social media.
Create lists of potential social media connections for your business’ blog and tag some of those possible connections each time you share one of your blog posts. This helps build relationships with those who might have interest in your content while increasing the odds of social media shares for your content. When you attempt to build social relationships with those who have already shown an interest in content relevant to your market sector, you not only increase the size of your social network, but you showcase to others why your content is superior. To ensure your content tops your competitors’ content, learn how to use the skyscraper technique (backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique) to craft irresistible blog posts.
5) Using tools like Google Trends (trends.google.com) and Google AutoSuggest (/keywordtool.io/google-suggest) is a no-brainer for business bloggers who want to create killer content to outshine competitors. The problem is, your competitors are probably using those tools too. If you really want to outperform your competitors, craft content that focuses on where your industry is heading. Pay attention to future trends for your industry and offer your readers blog posts about developments within your market sector. Check out websites like Futurism.com, TrendHunter.com, and the #futurist hashtag on Twitter. The more you know about where your industry is heading, the faster you’ll be able to build a reputation as a thought leader in your sector.
Incorporate these five business development tips into your blogging strategy and you’ll build a business blog your online audience won’t be able to resist. Focus on offering informative and education content combined with stop-them-in-their-tracks visuals (infographics are awesome for this) and your business’ blog will dominate your competitors’ blogs in no time. Will you be doubling down on business blogging to turbocharge your company’s growth rate this year?
