Are all your competitors doing it and you don’t want to miss out? Perhaps you’ve heard how a brand blog could boost organic traffic to your website, increase conversions and help establish your brand authority.

Writing a regular page of content doesn’t sound too challenging, hey? But before you dive headfirst into blogging, you’ll need to develop your blog content strategy to ensure the time you spend writing isn’t wasted. Here’s how.

Why Start A Blog For Your Business?

As we’ve already mentioned a couple above, there are several reasons why starting a brand blog can be a smart move for your business.

• A blog can increase the volume of organic search traffic reaching your website in the long term.
• Want to improve conversion rates? You can promote products with distinct calls to action, and posts showcasing your industry expertise can work magic in building customer trust.
• Your blog can be your platform to build your brand authority, showing how your expertise can offer the most effective solutions to a customer’s problems.

However, you’ll need to create a plan. According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, 60% of businesses with a defined content strategy reported seeing results compared to 32% without.

Strategy, it appears, gives you a fighting chance in the digital marketing game. Without it, you’ve forfeited the match before you even take the first swing.

Define Your Business Blog Objective

All those reasons to start a blog are a veritable menu of business objectives. How could your business most benefit from a blog? Is your conversion rate rock bottom? Or are you not getting the organic traffic you think you deserve? Pick your objective and channel your content to meet it. The important bit? Check back in with that objective as you go along to keep things tight and on schedule. But, before you start writing…

Understand Your Audience

First, you’ve got some questions to answer before your virtual pen meets its virtual paper:

• Who are your customers?
• What are their problems?
• How do you provide solutions?

Your blog content helps you connect the solutions you offer to the problems your customers face. With the right content, your customers will feel like you’re listening to them, and your values and mission will resonate. Case studies are great here – use them to your advantage to tell your story through your customer’s voice.

How To Choose Content For Your Blog

Keeping it customer-centric is key. Here are a couple of magic tricks of the trade our wizards use to write informed, customer-focused blogs:

• Use keyword research to help you get a feel for the problems your customers are trying to address when visiting your site.
• Keyword research will also help you understand where you can improve organic traffic.
• Use that research to generate relevant content ideas.

Consider Outside Help With Your Blog Strategy

Blogs need regular love. We hate to ask this, but can you commit? Are your writing skills and SEO know-how up to the task? If the answers are half-hearted rather than a resounding ‘yes’, it might be time to outsource the task to a content marketing agency.

Why? Briefly, a professional content marketing agency can:

• Use its expertise to advise you on strategy.
• Commit to a regular volume of work, with fast turnarounds and the flexibility to increase capacity when needed.
• Draw on the creativity of professional writers with experience within your industry.
• Ensure your blog content is optimized efficiently for search to maximize its value for organic traffic.

A business blog can be a game-changer if you want to increase organic traffic, drive conversions, or build brand identity and authority. But, you’ll need a solid strategy to get results.

Turn your blog from bust to boom by defining clear objectives and keeping your customers front and center.