How to Write a Solid Business Blog That Attracts Visitors Above all, make your content useful to your readers.
By Syed Balkhi Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Here's something you already know: Blogging is an effective way to attract visitors to your website. In fact, you may have heard awesome statistics such as the one from Statista that says that of internet users ages 19 to 29 surveyed, 47 percent reported reading blogs regularly.
Related: Why You Should Republish Old Blog Content
The obvious conclusion is that blogging is a good business strategy to drive more traffic to your site and increase your conversions.
But, is it failing to work for your business? After all, there's a lot of content on the web; and if your content isn't up to par, you'll never break through the noise. So, how do you craft blog posts that internet users will flock to?
Here are some ideas for writing solid business content that attracts viewers:
Write for your audience.
Occasionally, when business owners start blogging, their first instinct is to write about themselves. While blogging originated as a format for online journaling, that's not what makes for a successful business blog today. On the other hand, blogging for your business isn't all about showing off your expertise, either. Nor is using big words to make you appear smarter, or dropping in jargon users won't understand.
Instead, you have to create content that's useful and relevant to your target audience. According to research by journalism and electronic media professor Barbara Kaye at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, there are nine reasons readers seek out information from blogs. These include conveniently located information and information that offers guidance/opinions.
So, what kind of useful content does your own audience want to read? There are a number of ways to figure that out. First, if you've already started blogging, look at your analytics to see which posts are the most popular. This will give you an idea of what your audience wants. You should create detailed buyer personas to help you discover your audience's interests. Also, hang out where they hang out online to see for yourself what they're interested in.
Not only does your content have to be useful for your audience, it also has to be easy and enjoyable to read. So, write in a casual way, as though you're speaking to a friend. Your audience will form a better connection with you and your business when its members can relate to you through your content. Other tips for making your content easy-to-read for your audience include:
Use headings.
Add bullet lists.
Keep paragraphs short, with lots of white space.
Insert eye-catching images.
Check out your competition.
Another important step to writing better business content is to take a look at what's already been successful for your competition. After all, if you can't beat "em, join "em. Checking out competitors will help you discover what's working and show you how you can incorporate something similar into your own business content for better results.
Start by reading the blogs of your biggest competitors to get a feel for the type of content they're producing.
Study the top content and figure out what you can do to create something like it. How do their headlines compare to yours? What platforms have the most engagement? What topics perform the best? Your direct competition is going after the same target audience as you, so by looking at what's working for them, you'll create content that brings them over to your website.
Don't forget about SEO.
Even if your content is spectacular,you have to consider SEO when creating it or users on the web will never discover it. SEO is key to attracting visitors to your blog and website. In fact, there are over 3.5 billion searches on Google per day. So, if you want your business content to be found on the web by tons of users, you'll need to create content with search engines in mind.
Related: 4 Simple Reasons Your Blog Still Isn't Getting Traffic
First, think about how your target audience would typically find you on the web. For instance, if your company creates budgeting software, your target audience might type "best budgeting software" into the Google search bar. You'll need to add that keyword/key phrase throughout your content in a natural way, to get your blog post into the top search results for that query.
You can also determine other user-intent keywords to use by looking in the "searches related to" section at the bottom of Google search results. For example, below are the search terms related to "best budgeting software" that you could consider using:
Image Source: Google.com
Some other SEO tips for your content include:
Make the post longer, for better results.
Add internal links.
Include a keyword in your title tag.
Optimize your meta description.
Optimize your image alt text.
Remember, don't write specifically for SEO; write great content with SEO in mind.
Related: Why We Should Focus on Attention, Not Clicks
Over to you
Start writing today! Now that you have in your back pocket these tips for writing solid business content that attracts visitors, your business blog may well bcome a popular spot on the web. When you've got hoards of people coming to check out your blog, you'll have that much more opportunity to turn those readers into leads -- and, ultimately, customers.
