Blogging your way to a successful small business

Blog marketing remains one of the best ways to get major bang for your buck as a small business. If you’re able to blog effectively, you’ll be able to build your brand relationship with new and existing customers without having to pay per click like is the case with many ads.

With your industry expertise, a working knowledge of SEO, and your laptop, you can reach your target audiences with great content. Here are some things to keep in mind as you blog your way to a successful small business.

What Are the Benefits of Blogging for SMBs?

Let’s first cover some key benefits of nailing your small biz blog.

  • Drive website traffic: Incorporating relevant keywords throughout your content will help your website’s chances of showing up higher in search engine results, potentially prompting people to visit your website. The result? People may learn about your brand or, ideally, even start shopping if they like what they see.
  • Boost brand authority: Getting your name out there as a small business is no easy feat, but having trustworthy, helpful, and authoritative content out there can help your brand start to hone its reputation. Just make sure every piece of content exudes your brand values while offering real value to online users.
  • Repurpose your content: Maintaining an active blog will give your social media pages plenty of fuel as you post them across channels, maximizing engagement.
  • Increase domain authority: Another SEO tactic, creating great content will earn your brand more backlinks — also known as other sites linking to your content — which will boost your overall domain authority. This ultimately makes it easier and more likely for people to find your website when using search engines.

Tips for Running a Small Business Blog

Not sure where to start with your small business blog? Here are some tips on how to promote your business from Verizon Small Business using written and video blog content:
 

  • Create a product tutorial/guide
  • Hype up a new product release
  • Share a customer story
  • Invite a guest to publish a post
  • Share expert interviews

It’s worth considering what all these content ideas have in common — namely that they all aim to provide genuinely interesting and valuable content to blog visitors. Creating engaging and helpful content should always take precedence over creating thinly veiled promotions because, frankly, visitors can see right through those.

A better way to encourage blog readers to take a desired action is to include just a few calls to action in the form of relevant links. This way, you’re actively imploring people to take a desired action, like viewing a product or signing up for your email newsletter, without creating content that’s too aggressively “salesy.”

In addition to the type and form of content your blog publishes, you’ll also need to consider the when. Experts generally advise businesses to be as consistent as possible — one article each week is better than a slew of articles in a single week then nothing for the rest of the month. Creating a content marketing calendar can help you schedule out your posts ahead of time and make sure you’re mixing up the type of blog posts you create. This will help your blog avoid becoming too stale and predictable.

At the end of the day, blogging is a cost-effective, creative way to put your small business on the map without breaking the bank. There are many compelling reasons why it’s absolutely worth optimizing your SMB’s blog — and plenty of tips on how to create great content for your target audience.

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