For companies starting out in content marketing, it can be very difficult to find their footing. Many begin blogging, write a few basic posts, and then become discouraged when the traffic doesn’t come flooding in. In general, many firms have a skewed expectation of how quickly content marketing can deliver results, but also often underestimate the long-term results that it could offer and how it’s a digital marketing strategy must.
Follow these few simple rules when you start your company blog to help it grow, stay consistent, and publish helpful content that your audience will enjoy.
Publish At Least a Blog Post Per Week
In order to build an ongoing audience for your blog, it is absolutely imperative that you are publishing content regularly. Conventional wisdom says that your company should publish a blog post at least once per week.
Now, you can publish less than once a week if you are publishing extremely high quality, well-written content. But in general, a company should look to publish a blog post at least once a week so that their audience has a reasonable expectation of when new content will arrive on the blog, and when they should come back and check for a new article.
Spend As Much Time Promoting As You Do Writing
One of the biggest mistakes that any company makes when putting together their content marketing plan is not allotting enough time to promote their content. Simply posting a blog post doesn’t mean that it people will read it.
You have to actively work and hustle to ensure that your audience sees your blog post, to maximise your readership. In general, companies should spend just as much time promoting their articles as they did writing them. That would be the very least. You should continue to promote new articles for months on social media platforms to make sure that it provides the most return.
Make It Interesting
Thousands of competitors in your industry are publishing blog posts just like you.
The best way to make sure that your content stands out is to supplement it with images, video, and infographics from other authorities within your industry. Remember, half of your readers are visual learners and will absorb information much better from images and video then they will from a text. Make sure to cater to both types of readers, and go the extra mile with each blog post. Simply doing this can boost a company blog to the top 10% in their industry.
Avoid “Purple Prose” – Keep It Simple
Purple prose is language that is overly flowery and ornate. With lots unnecessary words. If your audience wanted purple prose, they’d be reading a romance novel.
Remember: great writing isn’t complicated. Most companies will find simpler writing provides a higher return, but not to the point of insulting your reader. Of course, this is often easier said than done but simply focusing on keeping your content simple and delivering a very specific message can really change the way that your blog connects with your audience.
Choose 3 Target Keywords for Every Post
Search engine optimisation is one of the biggest reasons why businesses should consider publishing a company blog. Each and every post that you publish has several target keywords that you mention within the post. By choosing three targeted keywords you are setting yourself up for long-term search engine success, and making it easier for you to find opportunities to link between your different blog posts. The more time and effort that you put into your keyword research, the bigger return you will see from your content marketing efforts.
But remember to not get too hung up on writing for keywords – usually it will happen naturally if you just chose a focused topic for the post.
If you’re interested in learning more about how content marketing could help your business to grow, please contact us today to schedule your initial consultation with our content marketing and digital marketing strategies experts.
