You’ve just wrapped up a quarterly sleuthing session on your direct competitor, and you’ve discovered they launched a blog last month.
Your findings? Their content is exciting and informative, not to mention relatable. You even found yourself enjoying it. And you know in your gut their blog will give them the level of leads and sales you’re both after.
But let’s face it. If you had known how to start a blog for your business, you probably would’ve already done it, right?
If starting a business blog is an undertaking you’ve wrestled with but didn’t know how to go about it, read on. Here’s your 2024-updated beginner’s guide on how to start a blog for your business to establish your brand’s expertise, connect with your customers, and drive conversions one word at a time.
Why the heck should I start a business blog?
Why start a business blog? Well, the short answer is that business blogging works. On average, companies with blogs experience 67% more monthly leads than their non-blogging competitors. But that’s just one of the many benefits of creating a blog for business purposes. Here are some more.
Establish expertise by starting a business blog
Like most companies, you’re probably operating in a sea of stiff competition. Customers are going to ask themselves, “Why should I choose Company X over Company Y?” Your blog content leads them to the right choice: you.
Remember learning rhetoric in school? Your company’s ethos is one of the most valuable things you can build, and a fleshed-out blog is a cornerstone of credibility.
Starting a blog with high-quality content requires you to tap into your expertise, and in doing so, you establish trust and answer a question that’s on the audience’s mind. Wouldn’t you want to be the one that gives them the solution they’re looking for? And the result is that you position yourself as the obvious authority over your competition.
Business blog writing will increase traffic and conversions
If you’re a small business just starting to make your mark, getting more eyes on your website is surely a priority. The more traffic you get, the more opportunities to lead readers down the sales funnel.
Think your website alone will get the traffic you want? The fact is that companies that maintain a blog witness upwards of 55% more traffic to their website. A blog allows you to produce content regularly, meaning you have a better chance of getting in front of customers. And consistent, quality content is what search engines love to see.
With a solid blog post polished off with a clear call-to-action (CTA), you’ve got a surefire way to increase conversions!
Business blogging can be used to set up an evergreen SEO strategy
The goal of SEO is to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs), which means you need search engines to like you. But what do search engines like? First and foremost, they like helpful, unique content loaded with the right keywords. With a blog, you have an avenue to create content that ranks well and stands the test of time.
There’s a reason many SEO strategies start with a blog: it works. Every post you put out can be packed with keywords, internal links, headers, and more. Content marketing through a blog is one of the best ways to show up in organic searches. As a matter of fact, our strategy at Ranq is to consistently publish on your blog to see significant results. SEO is a long game, folks.
How to start a blog for your business website
If there’s one thing we know at Ranq, it’s how to build a blog for. a business. If you’ve decided to start your own business blog, follow these steps!
Figure out your content strategy and goals
Before anything, you’ll want to create a blog content strategy and establish goals.
To build your content strategy, consider letting the following questions guide you from the get-go:
- What are my customers and leads interested in knowing about?
- What is my key demographic (e.g., age range, professions, etc.)?
- What type of niche or content gap can I fill?
- What problem or question will my content resolve for my audience?
- Which relevant keywords do I want my blog content to rank for?
- What type of voice would best represent my brand?
As for your goals, they’re no doubt going to change over time, but every goal should be tied to your blog’s success in a specific, concrete way. For instance, you might want to increase the organic engagement rate by a certain amount over the next 6 months.
To aid in that process, you’ll want to lay out key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your blog’s success. Here are a few we’d recommend keeping an eye on:
- Number of page views and blog visits
- Time spent visiting/reading each blog
- Shares and backlinks
- Number of new leads your blog generated
- Traffic sources (from your social media pages, search engines, etc.)
Give the right tasks to the right folks
Besides showcasing high-quality, relevant, and optimized content, you need the right folks to manage your business blog. Producing a valuable and high-ranking business blog takes a lot of hands-on deck, so you can’t tackle the business blogging journey on your own.
If you have a sales and marketing team, delegate the content creation to them. As for the publishing process, you’ll want to rope in your administrative or project management team. When it comes to conducting keyword research, it’s vital to have folks with an adept understanding of SEO principles and strategies.
Suppose you don’t have the staff to support these parts of your business blogging journey. In that case, consider hiring an all-inclusive SEO marketing firm like Ranq to tackle your research and blog content needs from A to Z. We’ll do all the SEO grunt work for you and start filling your blog in no time.
Do your SEO homework
In order to see any significant success on your blog, you and your team need to know how to rank. Ensure that your content production team has a baseline understanding of SEO best practices. Also, make sure everyone understands the search intent of your blog’s target audience. This also means keeping up with the latest SEO trends.
Since the Google Helpful Content Update launched in August 2022, Google has been cracking down on repetitive SEO plays. Websites offering low-quality content are going to see their search rankings go downhill. That means that for your blog to rank high in SERPs and generate new leads and conversions, you’ll need to ensure your content is trustworthy and unique.
Optimize your blog strategy as time goes on
Let’s face it. No matter your industry, every business can find ways to level up. The same holds for your blog content strategy. To ensure your blog is a success, you should always look to improve your content over time.
Just know it’ll be a trial-and-error process. You’ll need to post a lot before you’re able to learn what sees success and what goes to the bin. Keep a close eye on your articles to see how they’re performing and how you can optimize them in line with the KPIs you set in your content strategy.
As part of Ranq’s content marketing services, we commit to the ongoing optimization of your website and a “content upgrade” week every month, where we revisit existing content with improvements and extra content. This includes adding new sections, revising content to better match the keyword, and other suggestions from our SEO experts.
Don’t have time to start a business blog? Have Ranq take care of it for you!
We hope our beginner’s guide has gotten the ball rolling on starting your very own business blog. Blogging requires a lot of effort, but it can set your business’s digital marketing strategy in an unprecedented, upward direction.
However, there are only so many hours in a day. If the thought of tackling a business blog has you at your limit, never fear; Ranq is here! Our team of digital marketing experts will work with you on your blog every step of the way, from conceptualization, strategy, execution, maintenance, and more.
Contact Ranq today, and let us show you how quality content can help you outrank the competition one blog at a time.