You’re at a cocktail party, meeting new peeps and generally having a good time. Until you meet That Guy who can’t talk about anything except himself.
What do you do? If you’re like most people, you’ll mumble some excuse — “Oh gosh, would you look at the time! I’ll be late for my heart/lung transplant!” — and flee just as soon as you can.
Now look at your business blog. Are you That Guy?
Is your business all that you talk about in your blog? (Or your social media, but that’s a topic for another rant.)
The big difference between being That Guy in person and That Guy online is that you’re much easier to avoid on the Internet. People will ignore you in droves. And your blog just sits there, doing nothing. You’re not getting any views, much less comments or subscribers.
So how do you avoid being That Guy?
Why you have a blog
The first thing to remember is the purpose of your blog: To drive people to your website (which means that’s where your blog should live) to expose your prospects to the goods and services that you offer with the ultimate goal of getting them to buy.
Most business people get that. But what they don’t get is that doing a heavy, endless sales job with their blog is going to drive people away, not convert them to customers.
Fully 81% of Internet users are online to research products and services. Your blog should help them do that through education. And by educating, I don’t mean about your specific product or service. You have other pages on your website (right?) to tout that. In the research stage of the buying cycle, people are not interested in making a purchase. They’re trying to identify the problem they have and look for potential solutions.
That’s where your blog comes in, by providing them information about your industry, best practices, product reviews — even comparing your own products with your competitors — trends, statistics and more.
And people do convert — HubSpot, the inbound marketing champs of the universe, says that 71% of buyers are influenced by blog content and the more often you blog, the better your chances to convert prospects into sales. Furthermore, 57% of companies that publish a business blog have gotten customers from a lead generated by their blog.
Your business blog should provide your ideal client with the information she needs to make an informed decision. So how do you do that without nattering on about your own product or service? You do it by focusing on non-branded, education-based topics. If you don’t have great, informative content, you might as well spend your blogging time making cold calls.
Qualities of a great blog
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- It’s not about you. Your job is to help your prospects solve a problem, not to endlessly flog your own products.
- Know your target market. Who are you trying to reach?
- Focus on a single issue or question that revolve around your prospects’ pain points. What information do they need to make an intelligent decision?
- Make sure your information is useful, which will lead to customer trust and, eventually, sales.
- Add images that help tell the story. They should aid in reader understanding, not detract from it.
- Your blog should be at least 600 words long to thoroughly cover a topic and establish your expertise. Some sources indicate that the really long blog articles — 1,000 to 2,000 words — have better conversion and are more likely to result in sales. You know your customer best (or should). Will they they read an article that long?
What should you write about? The good news: You don’t have to come up with something original every time you blog (which is a minimum of once a week). The vast majority of your content (80%-85%) should be evergreen — stuff that is timeless and that can be used over and over again, with minor modifications.
Topical subjects are important, too, particularly if you’re talking about emerging trends, but they can quickly grow stale.
What’s worked best for your business blog? I’d love to hear in the comments below.