What’s the best way to be a blog beast?
A business blog is a marketing channel that helps businesses increase visibility online, brand awareness.
In my post "The first steps to success in affiliate marketing" I said; you will be writing a lot of content to reach out to your audience. In other words: be a blog beast.
In this second step, we gonna address this. (You can read step 1 here in case you missed it: "What is your website about? How to choose your niche?")
When you write a blog post, focus on helping to solve the problems of your readers. They’re counting on you.
Business blogging isn’t all about you. If you're not providing value to your ideal prospects and customers (i.e. answering their questions, addressing their ideas), you're taking the wrong approach to blog for business and are unlikely to attract traffic or subscribers.
Why should you blog?
Firstly; it helps drive traffic to your website that you can convert into leads and eventually in happy customers of the products you promote.
Secondly; it helps establish authority. The best business blogs answer common questions their leads and customers have. If you're consistently creating content, that's helpful for your target customer, it'll help establish you as an authority in their eyes.
How often should you post on your blog? It depends on you, the time that you have and the way you like to work.
I do suggest planning out a content schedule and sticking to it. Be a blog beast by posting 5 times a week if you just start with a new blog.
Be relevant
Be relevant to your topic. There are several steps to take to be a successful affiliate marketer. One of them is how you should monetize your business blog by researching and choosing affiliate programs you want to join. Although this is also a crucial step it is not meant to be addressed here.
Length of your blog post
Every page on your site needs to contain a certain amount of words to be able to rank. How long your text should be depends on the kind of page: regular posts (more than 300 words), whereas cornerstone content should be exhaustive and therefore needs to contain a significant amount of words (900 words) (according to Yoast SEO)
The use of a focus keyword or keyphrase
Let me first explain what a focus keyword or key phrase is...
It is the search term that you most want your page to rank for, so when people search for that keyword or phrase, they should find you.
Unless you’re a high authority site and you’re already ranking for a specific keyword, you should NOT use it more than once. Ranking for that one specific focus keyword is possible if you write an awesome cornerstone article about that focus keyword.
Another reason why you should not use it more than once is that you do not want to compete with your content for a position in Google.
Why spelling and grammar are important.
One of the easiest ways to discount your business’s credibility is to fall victim to spelling errors and poor grammar...
First impressions matter. If your content is plagued by poor grammar, people will probably think twice about the quality of your products or services.
Making spelling mistakes looks silly and unprofessional. So check not once but twice
Spice up your blog articles with images
When we create blog articles, we want them to be easy to read and spice them up with images and if possible with free ones.
People are visual by nature and if they come on to a website that is nothing but text, it can become pretty boring
Spread the word!
Subscribers
Make sure people can subscribe to your blog, this can be achieved by creating a mail list your visitors can opt-in for by providing you with their name and email address.
Social share
The various social media platforms at your disposal in order to gain traction for blog articles are countless. Of which Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are probably the most known to you. But there are many more around.
Social sharing is a necessity, not a luxury.
Final say
When writing you try to build a relationship, show them you are a person they can relate to, not just some random person trying to sell the next (shiny) object...
Use a picture of yourself in your blog post. This will show people you're not hiding behind your website and you're not afraid to back up your writings.
Respond to comments on your website, interaction with your audience is one of the key factors to get them to return to read more and eventually turn them into customers.
Are you ready to be a blog beast?
All the best,
Luc
If you find this article informative, do share it with your friends!
About The Author
lucbizz
I’m Luc Dermul, a Belgian online entrepreneur living in “the big apple of Flanders” Antwerp
Appreciate yoast for its technical features but all in all the paid version does so much I do not have a need for. Most apps give any feedback on how relevant your content is to your audience. On top of that, the majority of content marketing tools are majority fancy functionality. Would be interested in hearingyour opinions on it. Functionality like the fact that it lets you collapse suggestions on spelling, grammar, etc don’t interrupt me, it’s helped make me unbelievably productive. INK for All also gives notes on how to optimize content for Google search results so you don’t have to use several tools.
Hi Sheldon,
Actually, there is a “new kid on the block” called Rank Math SEO that does so much more than Yoast.
To answer your question: you only choose those tools you really need, in my case that is for SEO, Keyword research tool and an all in one marketing tool. To avoid writing mistakes, I use ProWritingAid.
Thanks for your comment 🙂
Hi Pauline,
Thanks for your comment.
Before writing on the subject you choose, you do keyword research, for instance in this article, I chose to write about blogging and my keyword phrase was “be a blog beast”, could also have chosen a keyword like “blogging”. When you have chosen your keyword you make sure you never used it before in other content you have written (see above why). Your keyword or phrase should appear in the title and the first paragraph. And depending on the length of your article a certain amount of times, for example, a cornerstone article contains it 13 times. Don’t overdo it, and your text still need to be fluent and relevant to read. Not reaching that amount is not the end of the world as long the content gives value to your readers.
All the best,
Luc
You make it sound so simple…
I am still struggling to get a regular regime going for posting, but I am reassured to know that they don’t need to be so long.
Great blog.
Cheers
Jo
Thanks for your comment, Jo.
Yes , do find a regular regime (even if it is only one time a week, although recommended is 5 times a week when you just started out) and stick to it.
All the best,
Luc
Great tips! I used to think that every blog post must be at least 1500 words and that frustrated me because it was very difficult for me to post every day with that kind of length. It’s reassuring to know that it is more important to have relevant content and that it is OK to have a 300-word post.
Do you think that every blog post must is created with specific keywords? or is it fine to write just what comes to mind?
Paulin