Top 3 Areas of Focus for This Year’s Marketing Strategy
I had a very interesting conversation today with a prospective client. As with every initial consult, the subject of blogging came up. And to be frank, it was met with a bit of resistance, understandably so! I liken blogging to exercising. It isn’t fun, it can be hard work, it takes discipline and most of all, it is necessary for your own livelihood. Perhaps you are a gym loving, blog writing unicorn without any issues. If so, this article is not for you. If you are like the rest of us, blog writing can be a struggle. Fine, I’ll say it, it’s a pain in the ass. It’s not because of lack of ability, most of us are quite capable of writing 500 or so engaging words. The struggle lies in the time commitment. “Original content”, as is the buzz word in the industry, takes time, something most of us are very short on! Last year around this time, I wrote about why blogging is so important, now we need to figure out how to make it happen. So what is the solution?
Below you will find 4 different ways to make sure you are coming up with consistent blogging content without taking significant time away from your day to day business.
- Subscribe to other blogs for inspiration. Medium is a great blog aggregator that allows you to put in the topics you are interested in and follow bloggers who blog about those topics. You will even be notified when a new blog article is posted if you choose. Not only can you use these as inspiration, you can also quote and link said bloggers in your own article, giving you SEO benefit, and perhaps capture more followers. I would also recommend you post your own blogs here, it will only expand your audience and contribute to your SEO efforts. If you are using WordPress for your website, they have a nice plugin that will automatically publish your blogs to Medium.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. You have content. If you have a website, or collateral materials about your business, you have content. I like to follow the 3-prong rule: Discuss a problem, show the reader how to solve the problem, and finally offer to solve the problem for the reader if they don’t want to do it themselves. If you follow this template, it makes writing that much easier. Draw from your own materials and write about the problems you are solving for your customers. You don’t necessarily have to build it from scratch.
- Videos can be blogs. The conversation I mentioned earlier involved a great solution by my prospective client. He is trying to promote his books and workshops. He has plenty of content! He is going to take snippets from his book and make them into video shorts so readers or in this case, viewers, can preview his book. We all know how effectively videos can enhance your SEO, and by writing out the video script, the content is automatic and searchable! Video’s like this are easy to make, try using SnagIt to screen capture a presentation, (the most recent version) or Vine is good to make a hand crafted video. Vine is more than just the 6 second loop they started out doing. Lots of others to choose from, look here for options.
- Hire a writer. There are lots of companies who offer this service as well as a bevy of freelancers looking for a way to monetize their talent. So unless writing is your business, leave it to the professionals to come up with relevant and consistent content for you. Most companies can provide blogs for under a couple of hundred dollars per writing, depending on the length you are looking for. We always recommend keeping it right at 500 words unless your industry is more in depth and requires more sourcing and data to make the point. Contact me if you are looking for a blog writing service. I might know someone.
See how I did that? I followed my own 3-prong rule! Overall, blog writing can enhance the SEO on your website, position you and your company as leaders in your industry, as well as create leads for your business. It’s worth your while to invest your resources as you see fit, into this integral part of your content mix.
If you need help crafting a blog strategy for your company, please contact us!
Also published on Medium.
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