How to Create a Successful Blog
Blogs are ranked as the number one inbound marketing priority by 55% of marketers.
Investing in blogging can also yield 3x more ROI than not investing in it.
With valuable written content published for their target audience and customers, businesses have increased revenue, boosted brand awareness, and boosted conversions over the last decade or so. In order for their blog to be valuable, the content must be valuable — just having a blog isn't enough; it must serve a purpose.
What is the best way to build your business's reputation as a thought leader and expert in a specific industry, while writing a high-quality blog for your target audience?
Blogging is a great way to market your business.
Taking a look at how to start a successful blog can help you start your blog marketing strategy. We'll also provide examples of successful blog sites to illustrate some of these steps.
1. Identify your blog's purpose and topic.
Defining your blog's topic and purpose is the first step in developing your blogging strategy.
In order for your blog to be successful, you should have a topic that is both broad and specific enough for you to write hundreds of articles about it.
If you're wondering why your blog exists, ask yourself, "Why does it exist?"
2. Make your blog a reality by registering and hosting it.
The first step is to look at the URL structure of your blog.
Essentially, the domain name is just the text in a URL that identifies your website and, by extension, your business in the eyes of the web browser. For instance, HubSpot's domain name is hubspot.com.
As part of your root domain, subdomains appear in the URL like this: blog.hubspot.com. "Blog" is the subdomain. Subdomains are useful for organizing a large amount of content, including a variety of different kinds of content. The short-term effect of this is that it passes less authority from your root domain. If you run a large blog operation, this structure can be helpful.
You can create subdirectories for specific pages on your website by subdividing your domain into subdirectories. As an example, a subdirectory directing visitors to a specific blog post would look like this: hubspot.com/blog/article-name. The root domain and subdomains usually pass on more authority to subdirectories. The disadvantage of using subdirectories is that you need more to organize your content properly and protect the user experience (UX).
A subdomain can also contain subdirectories to provide access to certain types of content. For instance, blog.hubspot.com/marketing/article-name refers visitors to a marketing article on blog.hubspot.com.
Making the right choice for your blog can have a significant impact on your organic ranking.
In order to host a blog for your business, you will need to choose a host. The easiest way to host a blog is through the same software used for your website.
HubSpot CMS users, for instance, have access to their website creation and management tools along with their blogging tools from a single location.
There are other popular hosting options for your business's blog, such as Squarespace, Wix, and Bluehost. See HubSpot vs. WordPress for a comparison.
3. Create a blog design.
Put effort into making your blog attractive to your readers so they will want to read your articles (and hopefully share them).
Organize, clean, and make your blog easy to navigate, so that readers recognize it as yours within seconds of arriving.
Make sure your blog theme is consistent across your blog properties and articles. You may have several options for free and paid themes depending on the host you choose.
You can easily customize and edit your blog template in HubSpot, for example. Templates help you tailor your blog to suit your business.
Beautiful blog design is exemplified by the Help Scout blog. Help Scout's blog is aligned with its brand and promotes easy navigation and readability. It has a minimalist design that limits the use of copy and embraces negative space.
4. Your blog should be managed and written by someone you trust.
In order to run, write, and manage your blog effectively, you need to determine who will write, run, and manage it. If you don't take ownership of each component of your blog strategy, you won't be able to reap the benefits of a successful blog. Ask yourself (or your team): Who is accountable for each role within your blog strategy?
A blogging strategy requires a variety of roles, and we've put together some examples.
- Idea generation for blog articles
- Researching keywords and optimizing for search engines
- Think leadership, statistics, and examples
- Revisions
- The governance of editorial calendars and strategy
- Getting promoted
- Optimization of historical data, repurposing, and updating
One person may handle multiple roles depending on your marketing resources and team size.
To help writers structure their posts, consider using blog post templates to build an outline that you can share with them (or you can use to outline your own posts);
5. Share blog posts on a regular basis.
Is it possible for you to write and publish a certain number of blog posts? How often do you intend to publish blog posts for your audience? Consistency is the key to retaining your audience's attention. You can also maintain your position as a thought leader and expert in your industry by using a content calendar to schedule and manage your blog posts consistently.
An editorial calendar creates a sense of accountability among your team of bloggers when you create such a blogging rhythm and share that information. This way, all writers and contributors can keep track of a consistent stream of content by optimizing for keywords, adding CTAs, and editing their pieces by a certain date and time.
A COS that comes built into HubSpot CRM includes an editorial calendar.
6. Make your content engaging and valuable.
You should emphasize just how important it is to write content that is both compelling and valuable for your audience. It is also how you're going to engage and retain readers — and hopefully convert them into customers, too — a significant part of how your target audience, customers, competitors, and other industry leaders view you.
In addition, your current readers are more likely to become brand advocates than new subscribers, so you can invest more time and energy in getting new subscribers. For your audience to stay on your site for the long run, consistently produce content that captivates them as well as provides them with valuable and worthwhile information.
A fascinating publication is Patagonia's blog, The Cleanest Line. Despite the fact that it's not a generic brand blog that describes Patagonia's products and customers, it still resonates with Patagonia's target audience and those who share its core values because it tells compelling stories written by some of the finest writers online. Reading the articles on The Cleanest Line has endeared me to Patagonia.
7. CTAs should be included.
Does your blog serve a purpose other than driving organic traffic to your website, improving conversions, or boosting sales for your business?
Those are great things to hear - but you'll need to include relevant calls to action throughout your blog posts if you want to achieve these goals.
You can use CTAs to provide readers with the value they simply can't resist, regardless of whether they are paid or free.
If your blog article includes a CTA, it could include in-depth content and information about a specific topic. Or it might contain a code or deal for a discount on your product or service. It might also provide more information about the subject.
To learn how to insert clickable CTAs into your content, check out this blog post.
Using HubSpot's CTA creation tool, you can create relevant, even personalized, offers to direct traffic to your landing pages and increase conversions.
8. You've launched your blog.
Your blog is now ready for launch!
Finally, you get to share your hard-won content with the world. You can share your blog articles via social media or share them with your network as you see fit. Put your blog content on its corresponding landing page on your website and send it to your email list.
9. Identify what makes your blog successful and track it.
Take note of how your blog is performing over time and analyze it. You can make your blogging strategy more targeted if you understand which metrics matter most to you and your business. Once you understand how a specific metric leads to a positive outcome. You might track blogging metrics such as:
- Readership and subscription numbers
- Posts with the most page views
- Instances of conversion
- Link count
- Recommendations
- Traffic as a whole
For concrete targets that make sense for your business, consider the following questions when applying these metrics to your goals.
In order to gauge whether your strategy is working, set goals for a 60-day period. Then, based on the results, adjust your goals if needed.
Putting your blog strategy into action is the next step.
Strategy for blogging
You should market your blog so that it can promote your business's products and services as part of your business marketing strategy.
Creating a blog marketing strategy is your way of sharing, promoting, and making your blog more popular. You can't build it and they will come with blogging, as Field of Dreams suggests.
It is imperative that your blog has its own marketing strategy in order to drive traffic, convert visitors, increase revenue, and/or position your brand as an expert or thought leader. How will people find your blog? What type of content will keep them coming back? How can you enhance your blog content with your other promotional channels?
Your blog content will be more effective if you follow these blogging best practices.
Be mindful of your buyer personas at all times.
Be sure to keep your buyer personas in mind as you write, manage, and schedule your blog.
When you can answer these questions in detail, you'll be able to nail down your buyer persona(s).
You should have a detailed description of your buyer personas to refer to as your business and blog grow. Once you have these, you'll be able to reference them when writing new blog posts.
This way, you'll be able to create content tailored to your target customers' wants, needs, challenges, and/or pain points. In addition to helping your business convert leads (i.e. showing your readers and target audiences why your products or services are needed), it will also help you turn your blog into a powerful lead conversion tool.
Competitors should be kept in mind.
If you're participating in an industry that has many competitors, it's a good idea to keep an eye on their blogs. They provide an insight into what's working (or not working) in terms of blog content for your target audience.
Moreover, it reveals what they're trying out, so you know what you have to do to stand out and provide your readers with valuable content that can't be found anywhere else—something distinct to your company and no one else's.
You could perform a content audit on five to ten of your closest competitors' blogs. Look at how they share content, what unique techniques they use in their blog, and how well they rank for the keywords you want to rank for.
Using tools like QuickSprout, Open Site Explorer by Moz, and SEMRush Competitor Research, you can find gaps in their content and take advantage of them.
Research keywords and SEO for your website.
It is important that your customers find your blog (or web page) when they search for a phrase on Google (or any other search engine), not your competitors. Invest some time in researching the words and phrases your target audience uses in search engines so you can use them where they naturally fit in your blog posts.
The more SEO and keyword research you conduct before writing your blog post, the better your chances of ranking on search engine results in pages (SERPs).
The first thing you should do is create a list of five to ten keyword groups you want to rank for, along with their associated long-tail keywords.
You should avoid putting keywords in your copy as Google's algorithms are constantly changing to become more intuitive - which means old tactics that might have helped you rank in the past won't work now.
HubSpot customers can make use of its built-in keyword tool and SEO tool to help them optimize their content.
Your content is probably already easily shareable on your website since you chose a host for your blog.
Adding your articles to their corresponding landing pages directly on your website is easy if you use HubSpot CRM and blogging software.
Social media platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and online publishing platforms, such as Medium, may also be used to distribute your content. If you'd like your content shared on their social profiles and websites, you might work with industry leaders, experts, and influencers.
Content promotion for your blog is important.
If your blogging strategy involves getting your blog content out there, you need to ensure that your targeted audience can find it, read it, and (hopefully) share it. This is known as discoverability.
Several inbound marketing tactics can be used to promote your blog. We touched on a few above, but influencer marketing is another inbound technique.
The first thing you need to do is identify the key influencers in your niche or industry you want to connect. These people should be seen as credible, trustworthy... and influential by your current customers and target audience.
Keep in touch with the influencers who promote your blog content as you begin making and managing your influencer connections. Ensure that their tactics are accurate and that they support, share, and promote your blog content — you want to be sure they are representing your brand accurately. You are likely to be paying them to spread the word about your content.
In order to show your support for your influencers, you can interact with their content frequently. In the case of influencers who also have blogs, you should visit their blogs, read, comment on, and share their content (even if the content isn't directly related to your business).
Blog Maintenance
Maintaining a blog is the most difficult part of creating and marketing a blog. As we discussed above, consistency is the key to success.
Content creation on your blog can take a lot of time, especially if your goal is to command authority in your niche through thoughtful, researched, and planned posts.
You can achieve your business goals in a more efficient and effective manner by updating, repurposing, and republishing your existing blog content.
The reason for this is that ranking new content on the SERP takes significantly longer than updating old posts. Therefore, by repurposing existing posts, you'll see results sooner.
You may need to remove or replace outdated content like statistics, examples, infographics, quotes, product or service details, research, and irrelevant ideas from your existing blog posts to determine what you can repurpose and update. Additionally, you can add keywords that you have determined are missing after conducting your research.
Updating allows you to maintain the quality and relevance of your blog without having to start from scratch. Updating is also an excellent way to refresh your brand-new content.
A Blogging Strategy That Works
If you want to nurture your potential customers, you need to grow an influential blog in your niche. Building a vault of trust and advocacy for your business will inevitably result from creating regular content that solves your readers' challenges and fulfills their biggest curiosities. This will inevitably contribute to the success of your company. After reviewing the steps and strategy we've discussed above, start with your purpose - the big why - and slowly unpack the individual levers that will contribute to your blog marketing success.
Got questions? Visit us @ www.sirkle.com and we’re happy to help.
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