Almost every company that starts out with a new website includes a blog section for their blog writing. But very few continue publishing new content. Why is that?
It’s hard to constantly research and brainstorm new topics, the latest trends, and put all that great info together in a coherent, impactful article every week. You’ve got a lot on your plate as busy entrepreneur and blogging quickly gets relegated to the back burner.
But you’re missing out.
Why is blogging essential?
Blogging is a great way to build authority, increase your website’s SEO value, and help you turn casual site visitors into loyal customers. In short: blogging creates an active dialogue with your audience that will ultimately produce more business for your company.
In the age of the Internet and 50,000 Google searches happening every second, being a successful business owner means being a content creator.
So here’s how you can turn that annoying, one-day-task into a constant flow of content that your website visitors will love.
1. Brainstorming and Research
The first step to blog writing, as with any other task, is deciding what you’re going-to blog about. The key here is writing down anything and everything that pops into your head. You never know how a simple idea may develop into a great article.
Then, take that idea list and start googling every idea you wrote about. As you google, take note of not just the ideas that are popping up, but the way they are presented online in search engines.
For example, if you search “best dog health foods” and half the results that Google shows are e-commerce sites, that means you need to write about products, not how-to articles. Google is telling you what your audience is searching for, and you can use those insights to help create useful content for them.
That’s called search intent.
But don’t worry about getting too technical, focus on the main point: notice the trends, and start to formulate your headlines based on what pops up in search engines.
2. Create Category And Theme-Based Blog Writing Plans
It’ll be tempting to get a few articles out this week; resist the urge. First, you need a real plan.
Take those brainstorming ideas you wrote down and grouping them into categories. You should have a solid group of topics that will cover your chosen niche.
For example, if you’re a website that sells yoga equipment, you’ll probably want to group your ideas into these categories: Yoga & Fitness Business Tips/ Yoga Diet Advice / How To Do A Basic Poses Yoga For Beauty / Yoga Meditation and so on.
Next, think of your hundreds of articles structured neatly into a hierarchy – not just a blog full of articles.
So, one Yoga beauty category might have 50 articles, but each article relates closely to the parent category – it’s not swimming in a sea of Yoga related articles.
By now, you should have a rather grand looking spreadsheet, with a category column and all your ideas within that category.
Now you’re ready to write your first article.
3. Don’t Write More Than Once A Week
Like an aspiring basketball player, the only way to improve your game is by practicing, not playing one game a week.
But you’re a busy person, and making the time every week to write an article can be daunting. In that case, it’s better to write once a week, or once a month – but keep your weekly rhythm going.
That’s why we recommend not going on a blog spree and writing a ton of articles once week, but none for the next five weeks; you need to maintain a healthy level of consistency.
Better to write once a week, for one year, than write five times a week for three months, with a 6 month break in between the next post.
It’s also good for SEO.
When Google crawls a website and sees content posted on a regular basis, it regards your website as a natural, healthy site that is focused on consistently delivering the right resources to its’ customer base.
That helps earn higher rankings, as Google will increasingly see your site as a great match for people searching for your type of content.
Yes of course you write every day, but only if you’ll realistically maintain that kind of output in the long run.
Finally, share! Ask your friends, clients, or complete strangers to take a look at your articles. Asking for their feedback is a great way to get them to read the article, and they are more likely to share it with friends when they feel that it came from a writer who cares about their opinion.