Blog writing doesn’t work for many reasons. The most common one is that small businesses are short on time and resources to produce blog content consistently.
When I visit small business websites, I often notice they’ve abandoned their blog after a few articles. Before you dismiss SEO blog copywriting as a marketing tactic, however, take some time to ask yourself a few questions:
What made you decide to start blogging in the first place?
Most marketers will tell you that you have to have a blog to market your company. There are tons of statistics to back them up:
- “Companies that blog get 55% more website visitors.” –Impactbnd
- “Small businesses with blogs receive 126% more lead growth than small businesses without.” –Impactbnd
- “Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI for their efforts.” –Hubspot
- Content creation ranks as the single most effective SEO technique. -Marketing Sherpa
- Per dollar spent, content marketing generates more than three times the number of leads than paid search does. -Kapost/Eloqua
The statistics don’t lie. Blogging is one of the most effective and authentic ways to market your business. Blog writing also has a high ROI if you pursue it consistently year after year.
But why you should blog doesn’t necessarily mean you really should. You might want to invest in other tactics, such as pay per click (PPC) ads and email marketing.
It’s just that blogging will help stretch your marketing budget.
How long did you commit to your blog writing campaign?
Blog writing doesn’t work if you’re looking for a quick fix. If that’s what you want, you’re better off investing in targeted online advertising.
You’ll get more from your online advertising and SEO efforts if you do maintain a blog, however. Your custom blog content will give you opportunities to share with followers on social media, develop backlinks, and optimize your website for organic search.
Because blogging is slow marketing, you won’t realize any ROI if you stop blogging too soon. If you’re going to have a blog, make a commitment to creating at least 52 evergreen blog articles. That’s one blog article every week for 1 year or one blog article every month for 4.333 years.
Was your blog content evergreen?
You can publish content that’s seasonal or taps into whatever’s trending. You can also publish evergreen content, which is content that never grows old.
Just imagine how much easier it will be to market your business when you have loads of custom evergreen content available for all your reuse and repurposing needs.
Were your blog articles SEO rich?
SEO-rich blog articles help you optimize your website for organic search. You don’t have to do this if you have a big enough customer base or following, or you simply don’t want to.
But if you want to raise awareness for your brand, you give your small business a competitive edge when you create custom, SEO-friendly blog articles.
Did you promote your blog articles?
Blog writing doesn’t work if you don’t distribute and promote your content.
After you publish an article, send a personalized message to all your customers and subscribers about what’s new on the blog. Also, make sure to promote your content through social sharing.
How did you measure blogging success?
It’s important to be clear on your goals. Otherwise, you may have unreasonable expectations from any marketing campaign, not just blogging.
So, how are you going to measure success?
You start by deciding what you want to accomplish: more subscribers on your mailing list, more followers on social media, more in-office visits? First, figure out your baseline conversion rate before you start your campaign. Then pick a conversion rate, for example, “40 new patients every month”.
You can then use Google Analytics to look at post reach, bounce rate, page views, session duration, and conversions. You can use analytics from your email service provider to measure email open and click through rates, and social media analytics to measure likes, follows, and clicks. You also interview your customers to see what resonates with them. Finally, you look at how many people subscribed, followed you, made a donation, or walked in through the door.
Over time, you’ll see a pattern about how your blog articles affect your content and organizational goals. If you’re not meeting your goals, you may need to change your content strategy, including your goals and the content you deliver to your targeted audience.
Did you have enough resources to conduct a content marketing campaign with blog writing at its core?
HubSpot says the only thing that blogging costs is time.
Most small business owners don’t have a lot of time. But setting aside an hour each week to create content is a great way to promote your business. And there are many ways to do this, including getting your staff involved in the writing process.
You can also scale your content creation if you have a sound content marketing plan to guide you. A plan will help you stick with your blogging goals so you can grow your small business.
You might also like Find Blog Topic Ideas Your Target Audience Will Love and 5 Tips for Writing SEO-friendly Blog Articles.
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