How to Start A Company Blog

Our recent blog Kickstart Your Marketing Efforts Using These Strategies touched upon the importance of establishing a blog when starting to market your company. Once you establish a social media presence, starting to blog through your company website is one of the best things you can do to ensure success with your initial marketing efforts. Let us tell you why.

Why Blog?

Blogging has become more important than ever for B2B companies. Through blogs, you can showcase your subject matter expertise. This becomes helpful when B2B purchasers are searching for a particular product or service: posting blogs helps make it easier for them to find you because it improves your search engine ranking, especially when you are writing content that is related to those products and services.

Need proof? Here are some statistics:

• 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search
• Companies that blog receive 55% more traffic to their website and have 434% more indexed pages compared to those that don't
• 68.52% of survey respondents believe that a blog adds credibility to a website
• Marketers who prioritize blogging in their marketing efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI than those who don’t

So, if you’re not already blogging, you better get started!

Tips On How To Blog

Getting started is always the hardest part, we know. But once you do, it’s a lot easier than you think. You just need to pick what you are going to write about, research it, draft your content, post it to your website through your content management system’s blogging module (or use a platform like WordPress), and monitor your blog traffic. Besides that, there are a few other things to keep in mind:

• Post regularly and consistently: We know this is easier said than done, but it’s very important that you are adding blog articles on a regular basis to your website. Otherwise, you will not receive most of the benefits you would from blogging.
• Talk about what your audience wants to read: You may have a topic that is super interesting that you want to post about. However, if it’s something your audience isn’t interested in, it’s not going to be read. Or, just as bad: it’ll be read by the wrong people. Know your audience, and pick your topics based on what you think they want to learn more about.
• Make it visual: It is helpful to add something visual to your blogs regardless of what you are writing about: blog articles with images get 94% more views. At the very least, you should include a cover photo at the beginning of the article. You can also incorporate other visual elements such as videos and infographics.
• Be both authentic and transparent: You can showcase your expertise and professionalism without sounding robotic or too good to be true. Find your voice, let your emotions show, and be ‘real’ with your readers. It helps to try and have fun with your writing - don’t let it become a chore.
• Use internal links: If you’re writing about or referencing content you’ve covered before in another blog, link to that content. This has the potential to keep the reader on your website for a longer period of time. You can also include links to your service pages when applicable.

So, now you have an idea about how to blog. But, what should you be writing about?

What To Blog About

Just like most - if not all - marketing efforts, what you blog about should vary. If you are always writing about the same thing in the same way, your audience will get bored (if they are still there at all).

It IS okay to write about the same general topics, but try to mix up the way you are talking about it. For example, if you wanted to discuss data backup, you could write a blog series that touches upon different aspects of creating a comprehensive backup and continuity plan. So, one article about what kind of backup is best, another article about which data should be prioritized when backing up your data, a third article could be about the things that your backup should address that you haven’t thought of, and so on. You could also approach that topic from a completely different angle, so it hits other customer pain points. So, one blog could be about data loss, while another can be about lost productivity that results when you don’t have a comprehensive backup and continuity plan.

Overall, mixing up what you post about will get you the best results. Here are some ideas on different things to blog about:

• Events: Did your company just attend a conference? Are you about to host a webinar? Let your blog readers know. You can write promotional articles before that advertise the event, and/or articles after that highlight what happened.
• Your expertise: Blogs make it easy to showcase what you know. Explain common issues, provide solutions to your customer pain points, and showcase the knowledge that led you to develop your unique customer solutions.
• Big news events: If there is a big tech-related event occurring that impacts your target audience, write a blog about it. This shows that you are keeping up with current events, and also that you care enough about your customers to make sure that they understand how it will affect them.
• How-to guides and best practices: It may seem counterproductive to tell your clients how to do things that you could be doing for them through the services that you offer. However, showcasing that you KNOW how to do these things is a great indicator that you could take over and improve upon the way that they are doing things.
• Something fun: It’s okay to throw in the occasional ‘fun’ blog with your more serious, informational content. Did the office dog just have a litter of puppies? Showcase them to the world! Well, at least your subscribers. You could also create a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly series on a particular topic that isn’t necessarily related to your core business.

You’ve now produced some high-quality, informative articles that your target audience is sure to enjoy. Now, how do you get your audience to read them?

Promoting Your Blog

To insure that you are able to share your subject matter expertise with your prospects and customers, you need to promote your postings, as well as promote your blog itself. Here are just some of the ways you can do so:

• Encourage readers to subscribe: Include a way for people to subscribe to your blog on your website. You can also run promotional campaigns through email, social media, or direct mail.
• Social media: If you haven’t already done so, make sure you establish your business’ social media pages. When a new blog article is on your website, let your social media followers know with a post. You can also promote your older articles this way. Just because they weren’t written recently doesn’t always mean the content won’t be relevant!
• Send email blasts: We don’t suggest you do this for EVERY blog post. But, it can be useful to share blogs on occasion to relevant marketing groups if you feel that the content will be of interest to them.
• Include social sharing buttons: Make it easy for readers of your blog to share the article to whatever platforms they are using so they can do the promoting for you. Make sure you at LEAST include buttons for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter at the top and bottom of the article.

Yes, all of this is a lot of work. But, it will be worth it for your business.

Need Help Blogging?

We know that managing a blog is very time-consuming. We can help you do that by writing your content and posting it to your website for you. Contact us today to learn more.