Blogging is absolutely awesome for your business. Here are just 3 of the reasons why.

Google absolutely loves fresh, valuable, quality content, so regularly writing new articles for your website is a great way to get visible.

Every blog provides quality social media content for all your channels.

Blogging’s a great way to show what you know – it’s a shop window for all that amazing expertise you have to offer.

So if you’re thinking of putting pen to paper, here are my top 10 blogging tips to help you get it right and maximise your reach.

1. Write for your ideal client

You need to have your target audience very clearly in your mind before you even start. Will the subject matter interest them? Are you providing value for them? And will this content relate to or support your business and what you want to be known for?

If you’re stuck for ideas, try this technique for inspiration.

2. Write with (a) purpose

Every piece of content should have an aim – what do you want this blog to make the reader think, feel, or do? Sign up to your newsletter? Join your Facebook group? Book a discovery call? Simply fall in love with you and your brand? If you want them to take action at the end of the post, SPELL IT OUT. State exactly what you expect them to do next, with a clear ‘call to action’. People love instructions.

3. Show your expertise

Make sure your blog articles truly set you apart from competitors, and add value for potential customers. Show, don’t tell. We’re saturated in content on every platform, so your blogs need to be valuable to stand out. There’s also an SEO (search engine optimisation) benefit – to rank on Google, your content needs to show Expertise, Authority and Trust.

4. Blog like clockwork

It doesn’t matter if you only have time to write one decent blog post per month…the key is regularity. Weekly blogging is the ultimate goal, but writing is time consuming and that frequency just isn’t sustainable for many. It’s better to produce one quality piece of content per month than 4 weak pieces. If you find writing copy a chore, or you’d rather spend your time elsewhere in the business, consider commissioning a professional copywriter to blog for you. You can even take all the credit! Plenty of people who are winning at blogging use ghostwriters – there’s absolutely no shame in doing this.

5. Size matters

Make sure your blog posts are long enough. Anything up to 300 words is considered ‘thin content’ and carries little weight in SEO terms. The ideal blog length is 800-1200 words (but long-form content only has value if it’s well-written and holds the reader’s attention). You can always mix it up, publishing a longer monthly blog post interspersed with bitesized weekly posts – for example diary-style behind-the-scenes content, or snappier top tips. Remember, the ideal mix depends on your target audience, what’s likely to grab them and what they’ll find valuable.

6. Make it scannable

However long your blog post, always break up the copy – make it scannable, as most people consume content on mobile devices, often on-the-go. Keep those paragraphs short and use plenty of visual cues to help the reader navigate and scan – bulletpoints, subheadings, summary boxes, quotes, and bitesized, digestible chunks of text.

7. Do your homework

SEO keyword research should still play a crucial role in all your digital content. Optimise each blog for the keywords or terms you want to target, which are relevant to your business and audience (ideally the least competitive ones). Long-tail keywords are particularly useful – there’s less competition, which gives you an opportunity to rank highly for those specific niche queries. If you need help with SEO keyword research, get in touch.

8. Hot headlines

Without resorting to clickbait (which helps no-one) make sure your headline grabs users’ attention. Take time to think about it, craft it, and make it compelling. Your headline and intro have to hook them in and entice them to read more.

9. Make it shareable

Do everything you can to encourage your lovely readers to share the content you’ve invested in creating. Obviously make sure it’s compelling and useful, but also make it easy for people to share it. Be direct and ask them. And prominently feature the social media sharing icons/buttons. Shared content obviously reaches a wider audience, raises your profile, and has SEO benefits, so it’s a win-win.

10. Broadcast

Don’t be shy – shout about it! Maximise your blogs. Get more bang for your buck by making sure your sparkling, new, well-honed content reaches that target audience. Share it with your email list, tweet it, extract snippets to make into Facebook and Instagram posts, use Canva to easily make slick graphics. Share in relevant Facebook groups where the audience will find the content of value.

Think about where your ideal client is likely to be. If they’re active on Linked In (and the content is relevant) copy and paste your blog into a Linked In article. There’s a huge opportunity on Linked In at the moment as more people are consuming than publishing content so what you do post should get a much better organic reach than on other social channels.

Remember to re-use and recycle your evergreen blog content, too. Re-share the really valuable and most popular blogs regularly on the most relevant channels. Don’t worry about being repetitive as only a very small proportion of your followers see every post you publish.

Hope that was useful. Now, it’s time I gave my own blog a bit of love.

First published on compelling-copy.co.uk