Today, more companies are gradually starting to understand that blogging is one of the ways to getting found online, converting visitors to leads, nurturing those leads to sales and delighting customers.
However, as with any other social media platform, just having a blog is not enough.
Despite witnessing a growing number of companies with blogs, many tend to be about their company. The articles might be about new hires, awards, company picnics, business deals, etc. And while that kind of information is appropriate to include on a website, it is definitely not going to generate many leads. In fact, it’s not even going to get much traffic.
Therefore in order to generate leads, a business blog needs to have remarkable content that prospective customers will love and share on social media. And that kind of content is crucial for generating inbound links to your site that can dramatically improve your search engine rankings.
A famous quote by Wendy Piersall: "Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first."
Here are the five things to take note if you want to set your company blog on fire and start generating more traffic, leads and customers:
1. A Buyer Persona Focus
Buyer personas are characteristics that describe your ideal buyer. According to Adele Revella of Buyer Persona Institute, "Buyer personas are examples of the real buyers who influence or make decisions about the products, services or solutions you market."
Your blog could be an opportunity to educate your buyers at the start of the buyer's journey. The more that you are able to write about what is interesting or helpful to your buyer persona, the more successful your blog will be.
It is recommended to blog about their typical questions and challenges if you want to having an effective lead generation blog to which your buyer personas will return repeatedly.
2. Focusing on one Topic Per Post
Focusing on one topic per blog post helps to clearly and concisely address your buyer persona’s problem. One topic per post also helps with search engine optimization (SEO) by better enabling the search engines to know precisely what the post is about, particularly as it relates to keywords.
And while you should always write for searchers first and search engines section, there are a few key things to remember to keep both happy:
- Include your blog post topic keywords in your post title.
- Keep your blog post titles to within 55 characters. However, it's OK to exceed 55 characters.
- Try to include meta descriptions. These are the snippet of information that appears below the link of a search result. While these are largely ignored by the search engines, they are read by the searcher deciding whether to click on the results or not. Keep meta descriptions under 140 characters.
- Include image file names and Alt tags. Since search engines like Google can’t read images, you need to tell them what the image is.
- Include links and anchor text. Link to other parts of your website to strengthen the reader’s experience. The anchor text you include in the link indicates to the search engines what the linked information is about.
- Focus on mobile. About half of all Internet searches are now on mobile devices. Search engines want their users to have a good experience while searching, so they are giving preference to mobile-optimized sites.
3. Consistency And Frequency
There are people searching for the answers that you’re providing (and the search engines) based on consistency and frequency. As the attached chart from HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing report indicates, frequent and consistent blogging pays bid dividends.
4. Formatting And Imagery
Yet another reason why your blogging should focus more on the searcher as opposed to the search engine is due to blog formatting & imagery. In fact, the proper use of formatting and imagery makes your blog more visually digestible for the reader.
If your blog is not reader-friendly and inviting, you won’t draw your reader’s attention and keep them there. And you won’t likely get them to return.
Regarding blog length, make sure that the blog post is of an adequate length and that it addresses the questions your visitor might have.
Other formatting must-haves include:
- Bolded text
- Subheads, numbers and bulleted lists
- Embrace whitespace
- Use high-quality images
5. Lead Conversion Opportunities
Last but most improtantly, make your blog generate leads automatically. This could be done by thinking of the blog post as the first step in the buyer’s journey of researching their problem. Afterwards, give the reader the opportunity to take the next logical step.
For instance, this post is about improving your lead generation opportunities from blogging, so a call-to-action for an eBook about lead generation is included right here.
However, if a CTA about social media were included at the end of this post, that would not be the optimal lead conversion opportunity.
Remember that your blog has lots of prime real estate, so ensure that you include CTA buttons in the side bar, end of the post, and in-text links. Ensure that the offers are as closely connected to the topic as possible in order to increase the relevancy & conversions.
Also, don't forget to download the free e-book for more useful tips & strategies.
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