One of the best in-house marketing techniques you can take advantage of is a blog. A regularly updated blog full of high-quality content is a great marketing resource for a whole bunch of reasons.
For one, blogging is still one of the most effective SEO tools in your personal arsenal of digital marketing tools. Google Webmaster loves having new pages to index on sites they are already familiar with. The logic behind this is quite simple: the more new content a page has to index, the more relevant it is deemed by Google in their optimization rankings.
You can change content on a service page, but realistically, how often are you going to be changing this content? Probably once a month, at most. With a blog you can literally post as much as you deem necessary. As long as you optimize each post with a few SEO basics (which you can learn about here), the blog post will help your organic search ranking and provide valuable insight for your customer base.
For another thing, a blog is a great way to connect with your customer base in a genuine, ‘non-advertising’ kind of way. A lot of digital marketing can fall into the trap of generality and mass-communication. With a blog, you are essentially providing free insight into your industry (and your business) without asking for anything from the visitor. It goes beyond advertising and offers a behind-the-scenes look at what differentiates your brand. That’s a huge intangible value. Gary Vaynerchuk refers to this as a “jab” in his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”. Give value, and then give some more. Earn the right to make the pitch.
Techniques for Building Blog Authority
Focus On Content – There is nothing as valuable as writing engaging content. Find your voice and style before you start blogging so that your words remain familiar to readers. Check out sites like Alltop, Google Alerts, or Feedly for inspiring topics to riff on.
Start Guest Blogging – You want to get your words in front of as many readers as possible, and that means guest blogging. A lot of the biggest aggregators of traffic do not generate their own content – they allow others to post on their site and thus generate traffic for them. Scroll through Huffington Post and Entreprenuer.com to get an idea of how posts should look, and then reach out with your own unique list of blog post ideas.
Invite Guest Bloggers – An effective way to get your blog off the ground is to invite a guest blogger to write a few months of content. Pick a writer with a large built-in audience of readers who would be interested by your brand, and track the changes in site traffic to see just how impactful it can be.
It’s a Long-Term Investment
It’s important to take a long-term approach to blogging. Always remember that you can run tests on what works, and adapt the content accordingly.
In running tests of your blog content, you might be surprised at how much ‘traditional’ blogging advice simply does not work for you. A case in point is the clean-cut layout most web designers recommend. Sharp lines, simple black and white color scheme, few distractions – what could be more appealing? It’s only appealing if it draws traffic to your site, and you should experiment with various layouts to see what most people prefer.
In developing blog authority it’s important to rely on intuition and experimentation instead of spending excessive amounts on banner advertisements (to give just one example).
Build Authority in a Unique Way
It’s an exciting prospect to plan a year’s worth of blog content. With the right kind of digital marketing consultant, a lot of research and a bit of soul searching, before too long it will be your name at the top of Google queries in your niche.