Whether you’re writing for fun or for a purpose, the good news for budding wordsmiths is that we have several blog writing tips to get you off the ground.
Let’s face it – writing can be hard. If it wasn’t, more people would be likely to do it. Conveying the thoughts bouncing around in your mind into tangible text can be difficult, especially if it’s not something that you do regularly. When you’re busy trying to steer the ship or focus on your products or services, blog writing as a business or brand can be even more arduous – which is often why commerce websites forgo having a blog at all.
However, failing to blog or post articles regularly ignores the fundamental principles of SEO, or search engine optimisation. If you aren’t blogging regularly, you risk being overtaken by your competition on the search engine ranks – even if they lack the quality or experience that your brand may provide. So, if you’re looking to make your foray into the blog writing world, where do you start?
Seven Blog Writing Tips To Get Started With Content Marketing
Blogs can help drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads, establish your brand’s authority within your industry, and ultimately contribute to growing your business online. According to market leader Hubspot, brands are thirteen times more likely to see positive return on investment when they put regular blogging as a top priority. If you’re looking to get the low down in regards to blog writing tips for beginners, here are a few of the basics.
Do Your Research – Knowing exactly who your audience is before you start is half the battle – think in terms of ages, locations and interests. This will greatly help with your keyword research, or knowing what to write about that resonates with both new and existing audiences.
Provide Value – Blog writing is not the place for the hard sell. Instead, it’s how you build trust with consumers, so try to provide real value to them without expecting anything in return. Think about providing informative and engaging guides that demonstrate your expertise in your sector.
Get Specific – Don’t go too broad with your topic, as there’s a good chance that there’s hundreds of other brands out there just like you trying to do the same. Short keywords are usually very popular in search form, but often have lower converting leads.
Write How You Speak – Formal and stiff prose is not the kind of writing that generally resonates with audiences. You want your blogs to reflect the person or brand writing it – so don’t go for a formal approach, and avoid large bodies of text whenever possible.
Proofread Your Work – Remember that proofreading isn’t just for spell checks. By reading your word aloud when you’re done, you’re positioning yourself in the viewpoint of your audiences. If you have to take a breath while reading a sentence, add a comma or hyphen.
Optimise Your Content – When publishing a blog online, don’t forget about the technical stuff. In order for it to pack a punch digitally, you’ll need to ensure you’ve optimised your content properly – think Google friendly titles, description, meta data, backlinks, length and imagery.
Repurpose Your Content – The thing about content marketing with online blogs is that it’s a long game – don’t expect to see results overnight. To gain some traction, “repurpose” your blog by posting it on your brand’s LinkedIn or Facebook page, or make an infographic for Instagram.
Does Your Brand Need Help With Effective Blog Writing?
Producing quality, consistent and on brand content takes time, effort, experience and resources – and you’re not alone if you can’t quite commit to that. Avoiding blog writing all together may actually be doing your brand a disservice but thankfully, investing in a solid content marketing strategy has never been easier.
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as blog articles, social media posts, videos and even animated Instagram stories. By using this model, we believe that it enables us to produce high quality content with faster delivery times. It also means that because you have a monthly credit, you are going to want to make sure you use these up – and so do we – meaning that your digital content is always consistent.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
