Are you thinking of creating a company blog? If not, you should. Not only can a blog reinforce your value proposition for your company but also boost SEO to bring customers to you!

While you may consider writing a blog informal, which it is in some ways, there are a few key things to keep in mind before you start pushing content out there.

Your company blog should:
1. Be non-promotional

Readers want to learn and be intrigued; they don’t want another sales pitch. And let’s be honest, people really don’t care how great your products are or the latest software installed. Talking about yourself and your company is a big part of your promotional nature, of course, but you need to put that aside for your blog. Leave the promotion to advertising and PR.

Your blog should consist of educational content including tricks of the trade, industry trends and other content that adds value to a discussion while strengthening your position as an expert. Experts that selflessly engage in this way earn respect for both their expertise and their giving nature. And a whole lot of credibility. By following this protocol, you are enticing people to return to your blog – which happens to be on your website – and there is your call to action.

2. Be geared directly towards your customers

‘Know your audience’ and ‘stay on message’ are time-tested pieces of advice that transcend the realm of marketing communications. Your blog should be timely, well-crafted and hit on the topics and trends that relate to and interest your customers.

Is your target audience consist of consumers or business professionals? And beyond that, what are the demographics and their interests? Just saying consumers or females as your target market is too broad and much tougher to reach. For example, a Medicare health plan will have a very distinct audience of people over the age of 55, while a fertility clinic will want to market to women ages 30-40. On the other hand, a cannabis point of sale platform company should only market to cannabis professionals and dispensary owners and managers.

Once you have your audience down, tailor all marketing content to that group. If you do not fall in the same category as your target market, try a focus group to give you more detailed information about who you are trying to reach.

3. Embed links and key words to boost SEO

To make an impression and create value in the form of increased engagement, your blog will need to be found first. Of course, one solid way to be seen and found is pushing out the blog content on your social media channels but you can’t solely rely on this. When embedding key words, think about what your target audience would be inputting into Google to read articles or find services like yours. Those are the words and phrases you want to use time and time again in your content.

Including links is equally as important, and according to Hubspot, the links should connect to the sections of your website containing the stats or other info you’re citing, which is one of the top three ways to improve SEO.

4. Include a Call to Action (CTA) at the end

The CTA is a direct, critically important way to activate reader engagement, mobilizing visitors to continue down your sales and marketing funnel.

It instructs them on the next steps to take. Even if your blog achieved its No. 1 goal of capturing full attention and interest, you still only have a limited window, i.e., attention span, to take the connection to the next level before the reader moves on to their next task or distraction.

Perhaps you’re hosting or speaking at an event related to the blog post; readers should know right away how to get more information and hopefully sign up. Increased website traffic is always a core goal of any business leveraging content to activate that sales and marketing funnel, so at the very least a CTA should lead readers to more information about your business and/or to related posts or pages.

Once you’ve written a rock-star piece incorporating all of the above tips, don’t forget to post it in your company newsletter, e-blast and, of course, social media feeds.

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