Your blog is the main pillar of your entire Inbound strategy. Today we talk about how to create a successful blog that contributes to the goals of your marketing strategy.
Planning
There is no good blog without a good plan. What is the goal of your blog? What do you want to achieve with it? Before you start, answer all these questions, and then keep your answers in mind as you begin working. Your blog's goals can be, for example, to attract more traffic to your website, convince your leads of why they need your services, and delight your current customers with interesting content.
SEO
SEO is the part of the work that helps people find your blog. Many people fear it and think it is very complicated, but it really isn't. It is about researching the keywords your audiences are using when they look for information on search engines, and then applying those keywords to the parts of your blog that search engines read: the title, the URL, the meta description, the body text, and the image alt texts. Learn more about SEO best practices in this Vlog.
Title
Your blog title is the first thing people see, and what determines whether the rest is worth reading - or not. Therefore, a good title must meet these 3 requirements:
- Clearly describe what the text is about, and what the reader can expect from the content.
- Be fun, surprising, shocking... or in any other way capture the audience's attention.
- Be optimized for search engines and social media: Contain the keyword (preferably at the beginning) and be short enough to be retweeted as is.
Length
The right length for a blog post is something that depends a lot on your industry and target audience. A general guideline is between 300 and 500 words, but 300 may be too few for a lifestyle blog, while 500 may be too many for a business topic. The only way to find out what's best for your business is to test and analyze!
Images
Images are important for three reasons: 1) SEO, 2) the style of your blog, and 3) social media. Search engines can read images, and including your keyword in the alt texts helps you rank in search results. For your blog readers, images help you create a style and describe the topics of each post. As for social media, posts with images generate more clicks and engagement than text posts, so don't forget to include images in your posts.
CTAs
Think of your blog post as the introduction to the topic you are talking about. At the end of the post, include a CTA (Call-to-Action) that promotes additional content. The CTA is a button that takes the user to a page where, after leaving their information, they can get the content offer. This way, your blog helps you build and grow a database of potential customers.
We hope these tips have been very helpful as you plan and write your blog! Don't forget to leave us your comments and questions in the box below this post. If you want to learn more about Inbound marketing, don't forget to subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel.
