If you want more leads and sales, it is imperative that you create excellent blog content. And that you do it consistently. Here are a couple of stats that explain why:
- B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not.
- 82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a customer using their blog, as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly. (HubSpot State of Inbound, 2013)
As a small business owner, you may find it challenging to blog every day. Relax. It’s not necessary to blog every day to get good results. My advice is to shoot for 2-3 times a week. Set up an editorial calendar to plan your topics. And set aside time each week to write your articles.
If you’re serious about blogging every day, there is a way to get it done quickly and easily. Just follow this simple four step formula.
4 Easy Steps to Creating Blog Content
Step 1. Do Keyword Research – This is a MUST. Your articles must contain the phrases your audience uses to search for your particular topic. No keywords. No readers! There are plenty of keyword search tools available, such as SEMrush or Google’s Keyword Planner in Adwords. For example, one of my clients sold landscape lighting. The top keywords for his industry are “LED landscape lighting” and “low voltage landscape lighting.”
Step 2. Set up Google Alerts. Once you’ve determined the top phrases to use in your blog articles, set up a Google Alert for those phrases.
Step 3. Review articles. Read through the articles that Google sends to your email. Choose the best ones as topics for your blog.
Step 4. Start writing. Here’s the format:
Paragraph #1 – Mention what you liked about the article
Paragraph #2 – Mention what you disliked about the article
Paragraph #3 – Provide a link to read the full article. Example: Want to know more? Read the rest of Lawn & Landscape’s article here.
Bonus tip: Think of a specific person to address when you’re writing your blog article. It will help you write in a way that allows you to better connect with your target audience.
Been doing this, Gloria, but didn’t add the Google KeyWords for each post. That’s a good idea!
I do this already both with the post and with Google alerts but I haven’t used G Alerts for each topic/blog post. That’s a good idea.
I’m also going to edit older blog posts into articles.
Sounds like a good strategy, Frank!