Blogging Success: Optimizing your blog for maximum results

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1 Blogging Success: Optimizing your blog for maximum results

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Managing a company blog is one of the most valuable services that on-demand enterprises can provide to their customers. That s because blogging is core to a content marketing strategy. Do it well and you will reap the benefits in increased Web traffic, loyal followers and a seemingly unlimited flow of leads. Do it poorly and you will undercut many of your other marketing efforts. The investment of time and resources in creating a professional blog is significant. There are numerous details to sort out to ensure that the blog you develop complements your overall content strategy. To be effective, it will need careful planning. Two of the trickiest decisions to make are how frequently new blog posts should be published and when they are most likely to be read and shared on social media. While there are some general blogging guidelines to follow, your final calendar should be determined by the type of business you run and the audience you are trying to reach. Beyond frequency and timing, there are a number of other factors to consider, such as the optimal length of content, establishing a unique voice, ensuring all content is original, using reliable sources and choosing the right social media platforms on which to participate. When put together carefully and followed consistently, your blog strategy will pay off in traffic, audience engagement and conversions for a long time to come. 2

3 FREQUENCY How often you post new content to a blog matters, although there is no magic formula for calculating how often that should be. Many marketers say there is no right or wrong answer to the question How often should I publish? But there are some strong indicators that can lead you to the right answer for your business. You want to post content often enough to keep the blog fresh, provide consistent updates and, most importantly, keep readers interested enough to check back regularly for new information. Loyal readers will expect to see new posts. New readers will check to see how often a business shares content. Sporadic posting does not look as attractive as consistency. The bottom line: The more consistent a business is with its blogging, the stronger its relationship with its audience. Blogging keeps a business top of mind. If your blog is providing helpful and interesting information, readers will look forward to hearing from you on a regular basis. Title of the book 3

4 Back to the original question: How often should you publish a new post on your blog? The simple answer is as often as you can, and that s not meant to be a clever riposte. To maximize the number of leads you receive as a direct result of blog content, you would post new items daily or multiple times a day. Digital marketing firm HubSpot surveys marketers each year for its annual State of Inbound Marketing Report. In 2010, it found a direct correlation between frequency of blog posts and customer acquisition. More than 90 percent of businesses that reported blogging multiple times a day said they had acquired new customers via their blog. The percentage that gained new customers declined as their blog frequency declined, with 78 percent of daily bloggers acquiring new customers compared to 70 percent of those that blogged two to three times a week. Every business is different, but a few of the questions you need to ask as you plan your blog calendar include: What are your immediate goals? Are you trying to increase awareness, or generate leads? Who is your audience? What kind of message will resonate well with your targeted customers? How often do you have relevant information to share with readers? Fast-changing industries provide a great deal of industry news to share. How much research is needed to produce high quality blog posts? Keep in mind that longer pieces will take more time to craft. How many contributors are posting to the blog? With many contributors, blogs can easily be updated daily. With limited contributions, it may be a challenge to publish once a week. What type of feedback are you getting from the audience? Are they sharing your posts on social media? You can learn a lot from metrics on page views, unique visitors, time spent on the page, pages per visit, social media shares and visitor-tolead ratio. HubSpot s most recent report indicates that the percentages in each category are increasing, with 82 percent of daily bloggers reporting they had acquired new customers via their blog up 4 percent in four years. 4

5 Considering all the factors involved, Tempesta Media recommends to our clients that they blog daily. Doing so will maximize your return. If you don t have the resources for that frequency, you should strive for a minimum of two new blog posts a week. Anything less would be leaving leads on the table, so to speak. Earlier this year, HubSpot reported that companies that published two or more blog posts per week, or 16 or more per month, received around 4.5 times as many leads as companies that published zero to four posts per month. Clearly, the more effort you put into your blog, the greater the ROI. 5

6 Timing Once you have determined how often you will post to your blog, the next step is determining what time of day is best for generating engagement and increasing the visibility of your post. Consistency is again important here. You want your audience to get in the habit of reading each new post. Readers need to know when to expect an update before they can establish a routine for visiting your site. Every business and industry is different, so there are few absolutes when it comes to the optimal schedule for blog publishing. But marketers have been analyzing blog traffic for years now and a few learnings have become generally accepted.. 6

7 If you are able to publish new posts daily then morning between 9 a.m. and noon Eastern time is the best time for a new post. Many readers scan their go-to sites when they start their mornings in the office or at school, so you want to have fresh information waiting for them. Sharing your post on Facebook in the morning will result in the most shares, but Tweeting in the late afternoon, around 4 p.m. Eastern, will catch the attention of more people on Twitter. A large share of Twitter users check in on their evening commute, so targeting that timeframe gives you the largest captive audience. A few additional insights, according to HubSpot and Track Maven: Publishing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday leads to more Facebook shares. Publishing on Friday can also lead to more retweets. Increasing publishing frequency leads to more traffic and incoming links. Saturday and Sunday are good days for blog post engagement. Most businesses post on weekdays, so there s more competition for attention during the workday. The most sharing on social media occurs for posts published between 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern time. If your primary audience is local, you should adjust timing to reflect the time zone of that audience. Fortunately, most blogging platforms allow an option to schedule blog posts in advance so you don t need staff working around the clock. Knowing your target audience may lead you to make different choices on when to publish. Ultimately, you may need to experiment to see at what times readers tend to respond with higher engagement. Working people are likely to engage more on weekdays, stay-at-home moms may be more engaged after the kids are off to school, and college students tend to tune in late in the evening. 7

8 OTHER BEST PRACTICES Frequency and timing are extremely important considerations when planning your blog strategy, but there are a number of other best practices to consider when developing the blog portion of your content marketing plan. Keep in mind blogs also serve as a direct path to speak to and receive feedback from customers. Find the right length for your blog posts. Searchmetrics reports that Google continues to reward longer content. Its analysis found the average word count for pages in the top 30 search results was 1,140. But don t pad your posts for search rankings. The content still must be well written with valuable takeaways and relevant information. Shorter posts between 600 and 1,000 words tend to be shared more on social media. And if your goal is to trigger more comments and interaction with readers, posts under 400 words are the sweet spot. Find the right voice. Every blog should have its own personality. To develop the right voice, you will need to ask yourself a few questions: - How do you want to be publicly perceived? - What perspective should the blog take? First, second or third person? - What personality should the blog reflect? Should it be light-hearted or always serious? Take this information and use it to establish a voice that is engaging and appealing to the target audience. 8

9 Focus on developing originality. A 2014 survey by digital marketing platform Captora showed consumers appreciate originality when it comes to online content. More than half of survey participants were "more likely to buy" from businesses that publish original content. Point to reliable sources. While you want to be seen as an authoritative source, you don t know everything. Consumers view content as being more credible when expert opinions are cited. Include statistics or other expert information to demonstrate your company is up on what the industry is saying. Choose the right social media platforms. It is costly and difficult to maintain a presence on every social network. Instead of creating profiles everywhere, choose the platforms your audience is spending time on. Establish a strong social media presence. The reason for this is twofold. First, you want more visibility for your company, and having a consistent social media presence can help accomplish this goal. Additionally, many product and service referrals happen today on social media because consumers trust their social networks. Making your content easy to share on social media will increase the chances that it gets passed along to friends and families who will be interested in what you have to offer. Make sure social profiles are maintained and that someone takes the time to respond to comments and questions posted on the company's pages. Do not focus solely on promoting yourself. A successful blog strategy focuses on sharing information of value with perhaps a bit of "gentle" promotion. Hard selling is not effective. Consumers crave good content, and by creating and curating valuable information, businesses provide a service that will lead to conversions once trust and authority are established. Ultimately, company blogs should create lasting connections between you and your audience. Blogs and the social media content that surrounds them are an ongoing dialogue between a brand and consumers. A strong blog strategy can heighten your brand visibility and strengthen relationships with customers. 9

10 About Tempesta Media Every organization needs expert content for its business. Tempesta Media is an outsourced content marketing firm that produces, publishes and promotes expert content for clients in more than 50 industries. Tempesta Media provides full content marketing capabilities on demand, powered by more than 14,000 vetted writers. Learn more at 10