Blogging Best Practices

Blogs continue to be a great communication tool for marketers of any size, in any industry. Blogs have two “big benefits”:

  • They help you stay engaged with your audience in, hopefully, valued ways—keeping you “top of mind” when members of the audience are in need of your goods or services
  • They aid in driving traffic to your website – because blogs are (or, at least, should be) updated with new posts regularly, your content will be fresh, and will contain relevant key words and phrases that can boost SEO

We have a blog that we’ve been posting to since 2009. We also manage blogs for a number of clients. In our work we’ve discovered some important best practices:

  • Don’t go it alone. It’s virtually impossible to write and edit your own work—errors will occur, and those errors may negatively impact your brand. Find an editor to review all posts before they go live.
  • Repurpose blog content for use across a variety of channels. The blog is the starting point. This content can then, for instance, be used on LinkedIn (for LinkedIn long-form posts, as well as status updates with a link to the original blog), in other social media posts, for shorter items like e-letters and newsletters and sometimes as the basis for longer whitepapers.
  • Review past content to determine if any posts should be updated with more current information and reposted. This content can also be considered for longer-form projects like eBooks or other book projects.
  • Be timely. Keeping your eye open for content from others that may be of value to your audience is always a good idea. Summarizing and referring to that content (also called “curating”) can help to position you as a go-to resource in your field, and doing so may also help you establish new connections (most authors/experts like it when their work is referenced on other sites).
  • Consider guest blogging to get your name, and back links, included on other relevant sites. “Relevant” is the key word here; carefully consider the credibility of any site you agree to let use your content.
  • Watch your analytics! Analytics can give you a sense of what readers might be most interested in, which can provide ideas for new blog posts on those topics.

From a personal standpoint, blogging can also help you to stay on top of trends, news and events; it can also help you gather your own thoughts on a topic or an issue. It can’t hurt – and it just might help. If you don’t already have a blog, 2015 might be the year to start one!

Recommended Reading:

The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement

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