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The benefits of blogging for business are endless, but you need a strategic, research-based approach for the best results. Problem is, you’ve come across so many suggestions on how to use a blog to promote your business offerings—what’s the most effective way to execute this content marketing strategy?
The good news: You can put some basic things in place, no matter your niche or business type, that’ll help you launch and maintain an effective blogging strategy that markets your business.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the most beneficial aspects of blogging is the ability to drive traffic to your website through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. SEO is how you craft your content in such a way that it is easily indexed and ranked by major search engines like Google.
Here’s a less technical way to explain how it works: Imagine that a thousand people are searching for “cupcake delivery in Charlotte, North Carolina.” If you’re in the business of baking and delivering cupcakes, and you just happen to be in North Carolina, then being the first result in a search engine could increase your business substantially.
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Blogging can help with SEO tactics in a variety of ways. Below are some ways to improve your site’s search engine ranking:
Keyword density: How often a keyword or phrase appears in your content
Backlinking: Other authoritative websites that link back to you for content related to your topic
Frequent updates: This means search engine bots will crawl and index your site more frequently
Long-tail keywords: Using extremely specific, niched-down keyword phrases to capture traffic related to very specific goods or services
Take a moment to research each of these concepts and then begin to implement them into your blog’s content on a regular basis.
Establish Authority
You want to be considered as an expert and thought leader to your audience and target market.
Why?
Simply because you want to be top of mind when people are looking for the best roofer, personal trainer, or widget maker that exists. A huge part of creating this perception involves publishing authoritative content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise in a particular area.
Jeff Rose is a financial advisor and founder of the website Good Financial Cents. He started his blog as a way to bring clients into his financial advisory firm, Alliance Wealth Management. The strategy has paid in spades.
Rose admits, “Primarily, I contribute a lot of my success to having a platform to market my expertise and thought leadership.”
Through blogging, Rose has also attracted the attention of other national platforms like Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur, where he’s been invited to be a regular contributor on the topic of personal finance. By being an authoritative voice on his own blog and others, he continues to boost his own blog readership while building his advisory business.
“By publishing my thoughts and real-life client experiences for others to consume, I’ve already earned the readers’ trust before we’ve even met in person,” Rose says.