2. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
It’s a simple concept: you have
a business, and you want it to
grow in order to be successful.
A critical aspect of that growth is targeting and
engaging your audience (aka prospective buyers!)
with messages that matter to them, turning those
prospects into qualified leads, and converting those
leads to revenue producing customers. But how
do you do it? What’s your solution? Blogging. (bet
ya didn’t think that’s what we were going to say!)
Blogging is a vital tactic for businesses who want
to remain relevant in their industry, because the
fresh, keyword-rich content blogging produces is a
key factor in remaining relevant to search engines
who determine your website’s organic ranking
position on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Before you get carried away dreaming of magical
blogging ROI, it’s important to know that just simply
having a blog won’t transform your business by itself—
it needs care, consistency, and optimized content in
order to drive both site traffic and leads. Businesses
that blog on a consistent basis achieve 55% more
visitors to their websites. That’s 55% more people
reading your credibility-building content, sharing your
posts, and perusing your site to see what else your
company can offer them. Talk about a big opportunity,
and your mission, should you choose to accept, is:
Blog with consistency, blog with frequency, blog
purposefully and provide value to your audience.
Why Does My
Business Need
A Blog?
On average, B2C businesses who
blog achieve 88% more leads
per month, and B2B companies
hover right around 67%.
It’s hard to argue with numbers like that so a better
question might be: How can you afford not to blog?
One of the major ways your blog helps your business is
through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Of course,
we’re assuming you’ve done your research on SEO,
but in case you haven’t: SEO, in a nutshell, refers to
the process of optimizing your website content in a
way that helps search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
crawl your site or blog and determine it’s organic
ranking on SERPs. Organic ranking is SERP real estate
you don’t have to pay for and it needs to be a staple
of your marketing and lead generation practices.
Basically, business blogging is a great way to improve
your online search ranking, which in turn, drives
more traffic to your website and gives you more
opportunities to convert that traffic to leads and
customers. Each and every blog post is considered
a new page for Google and other search engines to
index. If you’re blogging frequently (we like to say once
per week should be the bare bones minimum!) you’re
constantly giving search engines new material to crawl.
The more you blog, the longer your site remains current
SERP
3. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
in the eyes of almighty engine gods. Oh, and if you’re
wondering why we harp on the coupling of frequency
and consistency, it’s quite simple. Search engines see
inconsistency and infrequency as indicators of low
quality, low commitment, low relevancy, you name
it. And you never, ever, want the search engines to
think low of you (and doesn’t that just make sense?).
For example, say you’re a B2C company that sells
Ceramic Roosters. You’ve got the best Ceramic
Roosters in the area, and you know the quality of
your work stands above the rest. However, whenever
you look up“Ceramic Roosters”on Google, your
site isn’t showing up until the eighth page. This is a
problem. You may be popular in your local region,
but because you haven’t optimized your content for
Google, you aren’t getting the traffic you should be
seeing if your website showed up on page one, or
even page two of results. And since only about 6% of
searchers ever look past the first page of results, the
chances of finding your site are marginal, at best.
Blogs are also a great way to
improve your relationship with
your customer-base.
When you position yourself as a thought leader in
your industry—that is, someone your audience
can trust as a go-to and reliable resource—you’re
effectively establishing yourself as someone with
industry know-how, someone your audience can
turn to for advice, clarification, questions, or even
tips. Trust is one of the most influential factors on
buying decisions for consumers today, and 71% of
consumers say blogs (quality blogs) positively affect
their purchasing decisions. The lesson here: be the
influencer that they need! Earn their trust and help
them solve their problems.
Providing educated opinions,
value-add tips, expert methods
of handling tricky situations
etc. is also an easy way to
produce new content when
you’re in a writer’s-block bind
or want to provide a unique perspective, and it gives
tangible value to your customers and audience
who are seeking this type of information.
In addition your blog will also act as a 24/7 salesman
when you’re not around, continuously pushing
prospects through the sales funnel through the use
of Calls-To-Action (CTA) buttons strategically placed
on the blog page. CTAs are the bridges that guide
prospective customers to the pages on your website
you want them to see most (think pricing, services,
examples of your work etc) or to unique landing pages
designed to convert site traffic into leads through the
use of forms. When clicked, a CTA leads prospects to
a form or offer they can download, like eBooks, guides,
webinar, checklists, videos—whatever you’d like to
incentivize their engagement. These CTAs act as the
middleman between interested prospects who want
to take the next step. It’s a powerful way to gauge
interest in your pages and can help to capture leads
that are highly interested in engaging with you.
Your blog will also act as
a 24/7 salesman when
you’re not around
4. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
Top Excuses Why
People Aren’t
Blogging for
Their Businesses
There are always a thousand reasons in your head on
why you shouldn’t or can’t do something, and it’s no
different than writing a blog. For new bloggers, it’s a
seemingly complex process to dive into, especially
for a long-term asset like your business blog.
1 Feeling too far gone? There are already
thousands upon thousands of blogs out there
with more viewers, killer content, and an
unreachable search engine rank. That doesn’t
matter. You aren’t competing with the world;
you’re competing with your current reach. Plus,
who knows where your blog will be in two years.
The industry leaders didn’t just magically appear
at the top of search results. Your blog should be
about connecting with your audience to become
an industry thought-leader—a person they can
come back to when they need insight or advice.
2 It’s too time-consuming which certainly
isn’t false, however, it is misguided. Blogging
takes a significant amount of work in order to
reach success, and it doesn’t magically happen
overnight. Far too many would-be-bloggers
quit before they should. In fact, according
to Technorati, 95% of blogs are left
to die on the internet. You have
to work hard to engage both
your audience and yourself
if you want to promote your
quality content for others to
read and share. The fruits of
your labor aren’t immediate,
which turns away many writers before they even
try, as they don’t understand how it works or why
it’s helpful to their business in the long run.
3 There’s also the I-don’t-have-anything-
interesting-to-say crowd, but that couldn’t
be farther from the truth. The more remarkable
stance would be saying you have nothing to
say—which is just as unbelievable. Your job isn’t to
impress your competition or other companies with
savvy diction and meticulous grammar; your job is
to connect with your audience, while providing a
voice for your brand.
So you didn’t write a Pulitzer winner? Ah well,
did you answer nagging questions your visitors
have? Did you post behind-the-scenes pictures of
what’s happening around work? Jot down events
or practices you’re seeing trend in your industry?
Too often, businesses are intimidated by the idea
of publishing“everlasting content”on the internet,
but if you’re doing your job of engaging your
audience while giving them a place of reference,
that audience might just stick around for a while.
What Should
I Write About,
And How?
So now you understand the importance of blogging
for your business, right? Now comes the work: what
are you going to write about? Like, seriously… what?
Finding a blog topic to write about may be one of
the hardest parts of producing content. Once you
have the topic, all you need is a little value-add
research and some due diligence, and you should
be good to go. But even the most capable bloggers
run into writer’s block, so it’s helpful to have a plan
of attack when you aren’t sure what to write about,
or what your audience is interested in reading.
5. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
Generally, it’s a good practice to start with
whatever’s nagging your industry—what
are its most prevalent questions and pain
points? What are the most popular problems
your customers are asking, and how can you use
those problems to inform and educate your
audience about your brand or industry?
Today, searchers are typing full questions
into Google and they’re finding their
desired answers. Because of this,
your blog would be the perfect
place to answer those questions
and respond to comments or
feedback to help inform them of
what they need to know. But you
might not always know what the most intriguing
questions are for your audience, so you also need
to be able to create content using other sources.
It’s also important to make sure you
remember to step outside the confines
of your own brand. Your postings need to be
less centered on selling to the audience. While your
audience might love your brand and hearing from
you, no one wants to be sold to incessantly. Your
blog needs to be much more than self-promotional;
in fact, it’d be better if it wasn’t promotional at all.
Too often, businesses miss the point of their blog,
looking at it likes it’s another channel to cram sales
speak into. But that’s not the point, and if you go
in writing content with that frame of mind, you
won’t see much success. Think about it, would
you read that blog? Then why should others?
Keywords are also great for generating
content ideas. By building out a quality list of
short/longtail keywords that your target audience
is actively searching for on Google, you can kill
two birds with one stone. On one hand, you’re
focusing on a singular keyword for the entire blog,
which will drive your Google Ranking. On the other,
you’re helping your visitor find the content they’re
searching for. Keywords are also a great jumping off
point for thinking of outside-the-box blog articles.
Speaking of, what are some other ways to write
content for your blog when you’re in a bind?
1 Product Reviews
Reviews deliver a lot of value to your followers and
visitors are constantly looking for honest opinions.
If you’re focused on your audience, honesty
and transparency are the best approaches you
can take. No consumers like one-sided reviews
and it can sure be tempting to gush about the
product you’re reviewing. but you’ll be wise to
review the product based on its own merits.
2 Guides
Step by step problem solving is a popular blog
concept that’s utilized by so many businesses,
as the content is broken down to help the
viewer work through it. Who doesn’t like a
comprehensive guide that’ll help alleviate
your pain points? With guides for virtually
every vertical in the world, why not share your
expertise on a topic you know all about.
3 Criticism
Try discussing industry trends, and other businesses
or websites to stir up conversations. Going against
the grain is a great way to draw attention to your
blog, as long as you’re being careful not to step
on too many toes in the process. It’s also presents
a great opportunity to second-hand advertise
your own services if they rise above the critique.
4 Share the Fun
If people love your brand,
they’ll love seeing the
inner workings of your
company. What makes you
tick? What makes you so
fun to be around? How is
everyone always so happy?
Why would I want to work
there? It’s a great way to give
6. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
them an inside look at what you’re doing and
how you’re staying at the top of your game.
5 Top Lists
If you browse the Internet regularly, you’ll know by
now the power of numbered lists. They’re easily
digestible and generally fun, simple reads. Lists
also allow you to break down a complex topic into
more digestible pieces allowing the reader to skim
them over while still taking value away. To top
things off, posts with“Top 10”in the title get clicks.
6 Repurpose
There’s nothing wrong with repurposing your
content, even if it wasn’t for your blog. Handouts
and videos are great for blog posts. And remember,
there’s nothing wrong with reposting. If you
create evergreen content, there are no limits
to how long or how much you can promote
it. And remember cross promotion is key as
you don’t want to over-saturate your readers.
7 Start A Poll
Start a poll, quiz or questionnaire, and after its
complete, write about the results and what
you can infer from them. When you create a
poll regarding a certain service or product, it
doesn’t hurt to alert them to this poll. They’ll
share the poll with their followers and your blog
with get new hits from all over. As an added
bonus, it’ll help to inform you in a general
sense of what to expect from your audience.
8 Guest Blogging
You can invite industry leaders to write posts
for you, leveraging both of your networks. This
can help exponentially increase your exposure,
depending on the guest blogger. It also helps
establish relationships with other businesses
so you can continue to share content between
each other. We’re all in the game together.
There’s so much you can write on, and sometimes you
get stuck on the what and not so much the how. For a
lot of these, you can use the same topic and produce
all kinds of spins on it. Take those Ceramic Roosters. You
can take that one concept, and stretch it to all kinds of
blog posts. Maybe reviews of other Ceramic Roosters?
Critiquing the importance of Ceramic Roosters in our
culture? Maybe sharing your favorite Ceramic Roosters?
A poll on your audience’s interests in Ceramic Roosters?
A guide to creating your own Ceramic Rooster? There
really are endless possibilities for what you can do and
it starts with your drive and personal commitment
providing your audience with remarkable content.
How Can I Get
My Blog Found?
One of the most beneficial aspects of creating a
successful blog is getting it found by your desired
audience. Improving both your traffic and reach
takes work, especially for competitive industries.
However, getting your blog found is the most
critical step of every blog strategy out there.
Who wants to needlessly spin
their wheels, trudging through
the process to provide
quality content that no
one will ever see? It’s
probably the main
reason people have
trouble jumpstarting their
business blog; they lose
confidence if they think no
one is reading, and in turn, stop
trying. But their efforts aren’t a waste of time. You,
as a blogger, need to put in effort if you want your
blog to grow, because those old posts you wrote a
year ago can still help close sales two years later. For
any visitor landing on your blog for the first time,
7. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
everything they’re seeing is new and everything
you’ve written can be of benefit to them. Value is
value, and your audience will know the difference.
Write For Your Readers
But your first order of business is to take a step back.
That content you’ve been focusing on? It needs to be
interesting. We’ve said this, but all too often, bloggers
start writing for search engines rather than the people
they’re trying to reach. And while you need to appease
search engines, the content should be focused and
written for human beings—not robots. You need to
write something people want to share. We’ve all read
awesome articles online that we couldn’t wait to share
with our coworkers, friends or family and the goal is
to recreate that within your own writing. Go for the
home run drive on every blog, as people appreciate
quality and you’ll see that once you viewership grows.
Controversial topics are also a great way to get viewers
for your blog, as they promote comments and a
channel to voice your audience’s opinions. Don’t be
too radical to turn them away, but pose questions that
your audience may be passionate about answering
Create High
Quality Content
The higher your content quality is, the
easier it will be to get shared. And the more
inbound links (links on other web pages
that direct customers and search engines
back to your page) you get, the easier it is
to follow a trail right to your website. Sharing
is a powerful utility for boosting your online search
ranking, and it’s influential in getting people to click
on the article, even if they wouldn’t be interested in
it initially. By juxtaposing inbound links with social
sharing, you’re empowering your blog, and you’ll
want to reciprocate this by sharing others’content
too. Remember the Golden Rule: treat others the way
you’d like to be treated. The same goes for blogging.
Create Original
Content
Creating original blog posts is
important too. There are tons of
articles and blogs on the same
topic out there. You know the
ones: the Top Three Ways To X, or Ten Reasons Y Is
Ruining Your Business. Lots of people share and write
the same content. But Google is smart, and can tell
when something is getting re-published, rather than
created from scratch. That’s why it’s a great practice to
publish original blog articles, because it makes your
blog the only place to get that information, which is
a powerful connection. By making your blog the only
place to read an article, you’re positively promoting
your prospects return visits. The same thing can be
said of time sensitive events or trends, especially if
you’re one of the first to write about those events
(think Oreo and the Super Bowl). You’ll often have the
most traffic for that event because you were one of
the first results Google was able to crawl and index.
Write For Your
Buyer Persona
This next one goes without saying,
but if you want to get found, you
can’t be over-generalizing your
audience; you need to write for
your buyer persona, a fictitious
representation of your companies key buyers/
demographics. You want to target these personas by
focusing your content on their wants and needs. Some
personas will want fun, light copy--others want hard-
hitting research. The overall point is connecting with
them as people. Use day-to-day examples, and an extra
8. 17 Wilmont Mews, Suite 402, West Chester, PA 19382 · 610 692 6229 · www.stratusinteractive.com
dose of personality. The same goes for the title, as it’s
the first thing they’ll see. It should be very enticing
without going overboard. Make it actionable with verbs
and bold words, but don’t lie. If the title has nothing
to do with the content, you’ll be turning away would-
be prospects. Remember that honesty/transparency
thing we talked about earlier? Yeah. That’s important.
Use Social Media To
Your Advantage
Social media is also very important for your blogging
strategy. Sharing your blog to like-minded groups,
communities, or fans is a great way to get more views.
Google+ is also a great place to share your content
on social media. When you post on Google+, Google
indexes the content you publish quicker than it would
on its own. It also gives you an opportunity to focus
content on your buyer personas with its inclusion of
Google Communities. And if you’re providing your
audience with winning content, they’ll be able to
promote you for free. Never discount the importance
of fans, as they’re some of the most influential people
to those around them. And once you’ve got them
on your side, you’re well on your way to maintaining
a successful blog that will help bring in prospects,
leads, customers, and everything in between.
Key Takeaways
If you aren’t blogging for your business, you’re wasting
valuable opportunities to connect with your audience
and increase your rank in search engines, which is vital
to a successful business. It provides more entry points
for Google to index for it’s search engine, which helps
keep your company relevant and ranking. A blog is
a valuable opportunity to improve your reach and
exposure, build new relationships with your audience,
and influence your target audience to increase your
brand loyalty. And if you aren’t targeting your buyer
personas, someone else will--so now’s the time to prove
how valuable your business is to your visitors and target
audience. As we’ve said, blogging is also a long-term
process for your business. It provides organic growth
now, and in the future, as articles that were popular
today may still be popular years from now. And a
catalogue of articles under your belt, you have endless
opportunities to attract and delight new and existing
customers. The power that stems from quality blogging
can have impressive results for your business, and in
today’s’marketplace--can you really afford not to?
