Plenty of businesses would rather their products or services do the talking and generate sales based on performance. But today’s consumer wants more from their providers. They want to know what their story is and what their values are.
One of the best ways to establish your brand identity and generate high-quality leads is to publish more content. Consistent blog content can help your business provide industry expertise, discussions about new products, and show who you are and what your mission is beyond selling.
In this article, discover:
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- Why publishing should be a regular part of a business’s overall marketing strategy.
- Six benefits of investing in publishing more content.
- How to consistently publish great content.
Why blogging is important
You may be wondering why blogging is important or why you should be publishing more content on your website, especially if you listen to the prevailing discourse saying “blogging is dead.” This assumption is losing steam, however, if you look at recent data ( may we also point out, you’re reading a blog right at this moment!). Let’s take a look at a recent study from Hubspot: while 40% of people said they never read blogs, 60% of people surveyed regularly read blogs. In the same survey, the top reason why people read blogs was to gain additional information or to learn something.
While your blog may not be the only weapon in your content marketing arsenal, it’s still a powerful one to nurture. When you add content to your website, you’re setting yourself up as an authority within your industry. By providing your readers with valuable information, they’ll attribute expertise to your content. Here are a few additional reasons why publishing content is the right move for your business.
1. Increase traffic to your website.
Blogging isn’t just something you can do for fun that adds an extra tab to your website. Through SEO tactics, publishing more content on your website generates more traffic. Companies with blogs get 97% more links to their websites. After reading your company’s post people are likely to engage with you, as businesses with active blogs experience twice as much email traffic as businesses without blogs.
While growth can seem slow initially, if you practice patience and persistence, you’ll see your numbers rise over time. Once you’ve published more than 20 blog posts, your traffic can increase by as much as 30%. And make sure your posts end with a call to action to subscribe to a newsletter so your audience never misses a post.
2. Increase brand awareness.
As you publish more content and blogs on your site, your audience will begin to get a sense of your brand and company identity. More than 77% of Internet users regularly read blog posts and 61% of Americans spend three times more time-consuming blog content than emails. Blogs and articles are a more authentic and effective way to gain new clients.
Lightning Lesson
Not everyone who sees your blog will read it, and not everyone who reads your blog will become a loyal customer. But by generating increased buzz for your brand, you’re more likely to reach a broader segment of your target audience and boost overall sales.
3. Boost your sales.
When a person finds your business and blog through searching for a related topic or product, they are more likely to buy from you. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate and even if a customer doesn’t buy from you directly after reading a post, they’re likely to return to your blog.
Blogging influences 6% of e-commerce sales, and that number can grow as high as 12% for businesses blogging regularly. Simply stated, blogging on a regular basis increases your sales and awareness.
4. Establish credibility.
You want consumers to trust your brand and get a sense of your company’s values and background. Having unique content on your blog allows your customers to see beyond your services and learn about who you are, where you come from, and how your products make an impact.
Since U.S. customers trust advice and information from blogs, you’ll start to build trust with your clientele and establish yourself as a leader in your industry.
Related article: How to Develop Your Thought Leadership Platform
5. Stand out from your competitors.
Because of the amount of time and effort that goes into writing quality blog posts, not every company has the resources to consistently put out content. A reliable and well-written blog can help distinguish you from competitors in the eyes of consumers. Posting industry insight or employee stories, can you give your company a layer of personality. This is especially beneficial if you’re in an industry that does not typically have personalities attached to your services.
6. Increase your SEO.
75% of web searchers stick to the first page of Google’s search results — meaning if you’re not getting clicks, you’re not getting seen. Because of the overwhelming amount of traffic blog posts and links can attract to your website, creating more content gives you more of an opportunity to land on the most coveted page of the internet.
How to publish more high-quality content without sacrificing quality
When we say you’ll benefit from publishing more content, we don’t mean throwing together an article for the sake of getting something on your page. It’s critical to find the sweet spot that comes from scaling your content output without sacrificing content quality. You want to take care to steer away from low-quality content that could spell trouble for your marketing strategies. Low-quality content registers as:
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- “Fluff” articles or blog posts.
- Unoriginal content.
- Lacking reputable sources or making unsubstantiated claims.
- Articles with low word count and cookie-cutter messages.
- Content with numerous grammatical errors.
- Content that doesn’t answer the reader’s original question or query.
Low-quality content can have serious consequences for your website including loss of brand credibility within your audience. While high-quality content will set you up as an authority within your industry, low-quality content can deter readers from not only your blog but your brand as a whole. Additionally, low-quality content can invite penalization from search engines. Google and other search engine algorithms will filter out keyword-stuffed content if it isn’t up to the search engine’s standards.
Marketing Lingo
Keyword stuffing is the practice of spamming a target keyword in an article in an attempt to appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). Not only is this tactic considered unethical, but it can also do more harm than good by incurring penalties for your site.
Here are a few ways to pursue publishing high-quality content on your website.
Assess your current content strategy.
Look at your website. How much content are you publishing? Is it on a regular basis? What types of blogs generate the most content? Is your website optimized for hosting blog content? These are the questions you’ll have to ask before you create a content development plan.
Before you start writing, look at what you’ve done so far and see how you can improve it. There’s always room to grow. Expand upon what’s gotten a response so far and change what isn’t engaging and driving viewership. A content strategy isn’t permanent, so you can always change and revise it as you continue to post.
Identify editorial gaps and brainstorm content ideas.
When developing a content plan ask yourself: What is missing from our site and what would I like our audience to know? Maybe you want your customers to know about the people at your business and their stories. Perhaps you want to tell them about expanded ways they can use your product. Even writing about your industry can help inform your clients about what makes you stand out.
Brainstorm ideas not only with senior leaders and those who will be writing, but with everyone on your team and even your customers. Ask what they would like to see on your website, what they’re curious about, and the types of content they consume in their free time.
Write longer, more detailed posts.
Contrary to popular belief, less is not always more. Many people fall into the trap of writing short blog posts because they think they will be quick inefficient reads. However, the blogs gaining the most organic traffic publish between 2,100 to 2,400 words. It goes to show having longer, more detailed content is worth the investment.
Related article: What is the Ideal Word Count for My Business Blog?
Equip your writers with the necessary tools.
Whether you’re working with an internal content team or an outside agency, equip your writers with the tools necessary to scale high-quality content. The key is to ensure you’re consistently communicating your brand visions and expectations of top-quality content to your writers. This could mean going over your brand persona in a formal meeting or providing a presentation on company visions and values.
Once you’ve successfully communicated your company’s visions, the next step is to create a thorough style guide that encompasses the level of quality you’re seeking and relays proper expectations to your writers. A style guide is only as useful as its details so take care to be as descriptive as possible in your explanations on what you expect within the scope of a project. At the same time, ensure you’re striking a balance between providing project parameters and allowing for creative freedom within your content. The last thing you want is uniform, bland content for the sake of quantity.
Further Reading
A style guide can help ensure your brand’s mission and values are communicated consistently and effectively across channels. To learn more about creating your own style guide, check out this guide from Hubspot.
Plot out your ideas on a content calendar.
You and your team might have tons of great ideas, but without a centralized place to document them, your efforts might trail off. Creating a content calendar helps you plan out your posts ahead of time and give you and your team the flexibility and time to write and edit them.
Repurpose existing content.
Repurposing and drawing inspiration from your existing high-performing content can help your brand scale content output without sacrificing quality. For example, take a look through your existing blogs that performed well with your audience. Could you change or update any piece with statistics, graphics, or additional content? You could also bring additional attention to other blogs on your website by using internal links. After you’ve repurposed the blog, repost it to social media channels for an added boost.
Additionally, you can repurpose a blog post by turning it into another form of content for more engagement. You can turn blog posts into short videos or infographics to share across your social channels. Or flip the script and turn an infographic you previously made into a long-form blog post that will boost your search engine rankings.
Take a look at your content strategy like a hub and spoke, such as that of a wheel. In this model, a “hub” article is the cornerstone for linking to newer “spoke” articles. Main ideas will come out of the hub linking to subtopics, or spokes.
Plan your resources accordingly.
The bigger your marketing team is, the greater capacity they’ll have to create content at a higher volume. Understand your team’s ability to push out content and schedule it so they have time to complete it. Far too often companies will get overambitious and post a lot of content initially but then start to post less before ceasing writing altogether. Stick to a consistent schedule with planned out topics so you and your team always know what is ahead.
Work with a content marketing agency.
Regularly writing and posting content can take a lot of effort, especially if you don’t have a team of trained writers and editors. Data from the Content Marketing Institute shows 84 percent of B2B businesses outsource content creation. If you don’t have time to handle the editorial process yourself, you can work with a content marketing agency to plan, write, and publish blog content for your audience.
Content marketing agencies are industry experts with knowledge of best practices in things like SEO and content strategies. These agencies specialize in writing copy that converts for a variety of audiences and industries. Their high level of experience allows them to easily achieve your brand vision with the appropriate guidance. When choosing a content marketing agency, ask the right questions and ensure the company can capture your brand voice in a concise and applicable way to further engage your audience.
At Lightning Media Partners, we help our clients understand why blogging is important and establish a strong editorial voice by creating an engaging, consistent content strategy. Contact us today to learn more about our content marketing packages that can increase page views and business leads.
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