One of the many services we at St8 Creative Solutions offer your business is a company blog. You probably know what a blog is – it is rather commonplace on the Internet now, as a resource of information on a variety of topics. However, a blog can be much more than just a record of posts – it has the potential to be the hub of all your social networks. It can be the site of your very own community, working in conjunction with your SEO strategies and social media networks. A thriving community will equal plenty of traffic, and conversions for your business!
But what is the best way to build a blog that will lead to such a community? Follow the 5 steps below and you will be well on your way!
1. Have a blogging strategy.
This is extremely helpful because it will help you avoid the dreaded writer’s block! Create an editorial calendar for your blog so you’ll never be at a loss for what to post. You can create alliterations with topics such as “Technology Thursday” or “Motivational Monday”. A popular analogy that has been popping up on-line lately compares blogging to food. Rick Burnes of Hubspot wrote this article in 2009 comparing different kinds of blog posts to foods in a diet to show what kind of blog posts you should be posting monthly to create an engaging blog. Jason Miller of LinkedIn further created an amazing infographic last week called “The Blogging Food Groups: A Well-Balanced Diet of Content.” It is a beautiful visual example of what kind of posts you can create for your blog for each day of the week. You can see part of the infographic above.
2. Post daily if you can
If not at least bi- or tri-weekly. Fresh content is not only great for SEO purposes, but it also gives readers a reason to visit the site more often!
3. Create images
Such as infographics, branded content, videos…anything visual that will easily catch a viewer’s eye. This may inspire emotion, which makes the content more sharable via social networks.
4. Encourage readers to comment
And add toolbars with social networks for easy sharing! At the end of every post, it’s a great idea to ask a question that your readers can answer in the comments or ask for feedback. Adding ShareThis toolbars with links to share on networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest make sharing easy and will ensure that others will see your content and come to your blog.
5. Make your blog user- and SEO-friendly!
Simple fixes like making sure the pages load quickly and using keywords on images can allow people to find your blog and stay on it longer.
What are you waiting for, start blogging today! If your business needs help starting a blog, contact us and we’ll get you started!