Blogs:
Blogs are the original form of Social Media
©
Blogs represent a centralized hub for consumers to have deeper engagement with your brand
Benefits of blogs from a marketing perspective:
o Constant link building – link building helps SEO, and blogs are strong links
o Viewed as resource – establish authority and credibility through in depth posts
o Soft sell – friendly way to sell your product in low-pressure environment
o Deep, topical links – links to individual pages with strong anchor text
o Highly sharable content – generates new exposure and credibility
o Engage with fans – invite users to your blog for deeper communication
Blogs lead to more visitors – 55% more
Sites with blogs are more likely to generate inbound links
o People are more likely to link to an in-depth blog post than a home page
Sites with blogs have over 400% more indexed pages: good for SEO
Four questions to ask about blogs:
o Who is your audience?
o What is your purpose?
o How will you measure success?
o Are your plans sustainable?
80/20 rule for blogs: 80% are first time visitors; 20% are repeat visitors
o Plan to convert these 80% into repeat visitors
Five things to know before blogging:
o How to write well
o How to engage an audience
o How to focus
o Basic SEO
o Basic public relations
Build a content plan to manage your content creation and publication
Editorial calendars are hugely helpful to ensure that content is published regularly.
Use search keywords to gather ideas for blogs
Use event listings to plan blogs posts around important company and holiday events
Examine how to add call to actions onto blog posts to encourage conversions