Leveraging small business blog posts is critical to our web business. WordPress users are rumored to publish around 70 million blog posts each month. This may mean that we should join them as soon as possible and start writing on our blog.
Of course. In fact, having our own blog can bring multiple benefits to our business. In essence, it is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence that gives us many opportunities to share our knowledge, reach our target audience, and convert website visitors into customers. And the best part, with a powerful content management system like WordPress.
Running our own blog is now easier than ever. Actually, this is why WordPress is perfect for any small business. However, the bad news is that creating a blog will not be enough to make the most of our potential.
How to take advantage of small business blog posts?
Fortunately, in this Hosting Help article , we have some tips that can turn a beginner into a successful blogger. Before long we will be able to leverage our blog posts in our small business.
initial preparation
Starting a blog might seem like a pretty straightforward decision, especially given the benefits of WordPress blogging. However, this decision comes with some other important choices, such as choosing the right CMS and additional tools or integrations that can help us get the most out of our blog posts.
How can we facilitate this process? Let’s start with an easy and popular CMS. We will take into account that 35.7% of all websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress. This serves to decide that WordPress is, ultimately, one of the most popular and preferred solutions. Also, we can easily level it with other popular blog plugins, like Google Analytics . Also, with good email marketing software or SEO tools.
At the same time, we must not neglect the design of our blog and the quality of the images that we are going to include in our publications. They should all be attractive enough to make our blog enjoyable to read. Fortunately, once we choose WordPress, we can easily choose the best WordPress theme for our blog and make some adjustments to make it more personal. Then free stock photos and online image design tools will come to the rescue when looking for appropriate images for all our posts.
Competition Check
As we have already mentioned, there are millions of blogs out there. In such circumstances, getting our blog off the ground and attracting visitors is not the easiest, especially if we don’t know who we are dealing with. One thing that can definitely help is taking the time to thoroughly research our competitors.
Many of our competitors may be experienced bloggers, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We must think of it as an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Now, how can we make the most of this opportunity?
To get started, let’s try to identify the best performing blogs. Then we look for patterns like which blog posts seem to be the most successful? Why are they? Is there something we could add to the topics that will appeal to the most readers?
The idea here is to find our own business segment and a specific angle that can differentiate our blog from the competition.
We should not worry if we are struggling with competitor analysis, or if we are taking too much time going through all the blogs out there. If that’s the case, let’s just try experimenting with tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs . The least they can do for us is provide us with a set of relevant keywords that drive traffic to our competitors and specific pages that rank highly for them.
Investing time in our own blog post
This should go without saying, but we definitely won’t get the most out of our blog posts if our quality is low in the first place. There are at least a few things to keep in mind when blogging, and keeping an eye on our competition is just the beginning.
First of all, we must optimize the keywords. Fortunately, the tools mentioned above can also help us find phrases that potential customers might be searching for, and are also relatively easy for our blog to rank highly for. So, it’s time to write a piece that potential customers are willing to read and hopefully share.
Second, when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, it never hurts to get coverage on social media. As well as on sites and blogs related to our commercial segment. To do so, we must continue to publish thoughtful and detailed resources and invest in social media marketing. Interestingly, blog posts are also much more likely to be shared on social media by our email subscribers, so we shouldn’t forget to build our own email list. Think of us as experts in the industry that has yet to be discovered.
In fact, blogging is a great way to share our knowledge with customers and assert our authority as industry leaders. Lots of companies are trying to do just that, but not all of them are paying enough attention to their blog posts to be able to do it. We need to make sure we put some thought into all of our pieces and get a second opinion, if possible. This will help us stand out from the rest in the long run.
stay consistent
Don’t worry, being consistent isn’t about posting content every day. Quality still matters more than quantity here, but it doesn’t change the fact that posting regularly is important too. You don’t want to do a few blog posts in a week, then go completely silent for months on end.
Essentially, the more we post, the better chance we have of reaching our target audience and getting the most out of our blog. While there’s no single recipe for success when it comes to posting frequency, it really pays to stay constant. In fact, 44% of bloggers prefer to make 3-6 new posts a month, however they do it regularly.
Staying consistent also applies to our content promotion efforts. Especially in the beginning, it can be really difficult to attract readers. Let’s try to reserve a little budget to promote our blog posts. If they are really high quality (as we discussed above), they should start driving some organic shares, some likes , and email signups to our account very soon.
Once again, we cannot settle for that. We continue to write, improve and promote our content with each blog post. And if we need help keeping up, consider using an editorial calendar to plan and organize our blog.
Keep an eye on backlinks and guest posts
Content promotion doesn’t just come down to social media ads and email marketing efforts. We can easily build authority and drive traffic to our blog with relevant backlinks and guest posts. In many cases, we won’t even have to spend money on it.
It’s important to be picky about link pages and anchor text, as well as guest posting opportunities. If our content really adds value to a respected source, they can easily send us some traffic and leads. Conversely, when we contribute dubious pages, we are unlikely to build trust among our target audience. Once again, we need to remember that when it comes to blogging, it’s all about quality .
Interaction with visitors to our blog
Fortunately, by now we will have created high-quality blog posts. Maybe even blog posts that generate ideas related to our business and we will have also attracted a considerable number of visitors in addition. However, they may ask us any questions about our content.
Witty posts on our blog are perfectly capable of sparking a conversation with our potential customers. For this to happen, we need to make sure we have a contact section. One of these contact form plugins is well displayed on our blog, leaving space for comments.
Better yet, we could also implement plugins to encourage engagement. By adding a comment subscription similar to how Subscribe to WordPress Reloaded Comments, pop ups , or even a live chat plugin ( LiveAgent ) on our blog, we can have a real conversation with our readers.
Let’s start getting the most out of our blog posts
If we are still not sure if our SME needs a blog, we can ask ourselves the following questions:
- Do I have enough time to constantly create in-depth content?
- Can I contact my clients in this way?
- Can I get the most out of my blog posts?
If the answer to all of the above questions is yes, we are likely to be successful and really get the most out of our blog. Once we do, we should keep all of these tips in mind and should not be afraid to experiment with different tools and tactics. The key is to see what works best for our business and keep doing exactly that. It may be trial and error at first, but the results can really surprise us in the long run.
We must remember that competition never sleeps. Given the number of blog posts they make on a regular basis, WordPress users alone, someone might already be fighting for our potential customers. Let’s not let them beat us.