Bill FaethThink You Don’t Need A Blog? Think Again.
Overcoming Common Objections To Business Blogging
As many content marketers preach, one of the best ways to attract clients to your website is through blogging. In fact, this is one of the primary tenets of the inbound marketing methodology. With so much new content created and made available on the Internet every day, it may be counterintuitive to think that businesses still need to blog and still need to create content in order get discovered on the Internet.
Does My Business Really Need A Blog?
In short, yes. Businesses of all types who are trying to attract new customers online should blog for several reasons:
- A blog helps your potential customers who are trawling the Internet learn about your busines. If you are hoping to be found via inbound methodologies (meaning people find you organically, as opposed to responding to paid advertisements), you need to have content on your website that explains who you are, what you do and why people should care.
- Blogging helps enhance your search engine optimization. In order for you to rank higher on search engine results pages (or SERPs), your website needs fresh content on a regular and consistent basis. While consistent has a different definition to every person, blogging at least once a week is a great way to continue to generate new and fresh content that not only helps Google identify you as a valuable site but also helps your readers further understand your business.
- Posting valuable content to your website blog also helps you share your industry knowledge and expertise on a variety of topics. Blogging makes you relatable to your consumers by targeting content directly to their interests. People want to buy from people, and people want to buy from businesses they can trust. Sharing industry knowledge on your blog is a great way to establish that trust with your potential and current customers.
But…I Don’t Have Time To Blog!
As much data as exists on why blogging and why content marketing are successful, there still many questions as to how to do it and many reservations from people who think that they can’t do it. Some of the most common objections include, “I don’t know what to write about,” “We aren’t good at writing,” and “We don’t have time for that.”
Common Objections To Blogging
Let’s address some of the three most common objections to creating and maintaining a business blog:
1. I don’t know what to write about.
Many businesses fall into the trap of thinking there is nothing speical about their business or their industry that is worth writing about. But, just because a topic may seem mundane to you, who lives it every day, doesn’t mean it won’t be interesting to a reader.
Think about your content calendar from both sides of the computer screen: you as the business wanting to promote your products and services and you as a consumer reading the blog post at home on your couch.
- What types of articles do you like to read?
- What do you pin or bookmark to read later?
- What are the types of articles that you’re sending to your friends or posting to your Facebook newsfeed?
Think about those topics and what it is that resonates with you as a consumer and develop a blog content calendar that addresses both what’s important to your business and what matters to you as a consumer. Flush out a calendar for the month based on a cycle of promoting your business and identifying with your customers so that you provide a variety of media quality content for some informational pieces that can be easily shared and digested.
For example, if you are in the healthcare business, you may want to publish two blog articles a week that focuses on healthcare trends or healthy eating habits. You may then want to sprinkle in one or two posts a week that discuss the easy ways to get extra exercise or recipes for using fresh vegetables from the local farmers market to promote healthy living.
These types of posts will help sell your product and establish you as a trusted resource for potential customers. Mapping this out on the content calendar for the month will help you see what types of topics are available to talk about.
2. We aren’t good at writing.
While writing is a valuable asset that you should look for when hiring, not every employee or every company will have great writers on staff. Especially if your business is technical, industrial, or mechanical. (Which is one reason marketing agencies exist!) Don’t let the fact that you don’t feel skilled at writing keep you from blogging.
You may want to consider outsourcing to reputable sources, such as online programs like Zerys. Or you may have people on your staff who can write but haven’t been given the opportunity yet. Maybe you have an intern who is really strong writing or an administrative assistant who would love to blog or even someone from the sales department is particularly gifted.
No matter who blogs for you, make sure your writer utilizes proper grammar and spelling. (This should go without saying, but, sadly, it needs repeating.) Using correct grammar, as well as maintaining the same voice, tone and point-of-view when blogging will add to your credibility and authority. Grammar.ly is a wonderful online resource for checking your grammar prior to posting.
3. We don’t have the time for that.
There is no magic answer for how long it should take you to create a blog. That all depends on how complex your topic is, how much how much research goes into it and how quickly your writing team can actually write and produce content. However, if you think ahead and plan in advance, your blogging can be done in a timely fashion.
You may choose to blog two to three times a week, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until the week of to begin writing. Consider setting aside two to three days a week in one month to write as many blog post as you can for the following weeks or months. This approach will help you remain ahead of schedule and will help free up time for you to post blogs.
Another point to consider when blogging is that not all blogs have to be 800-1200 words, deeply-researched and highly-educational posts. You can vary the topics of your blogs, you can vary the types of content and you can also repurpose a lot of what you already have in your marketing arsenal.
Take existing one-pagers or sale sheets, testimonials from customers or even copy from the brochure that you’ve produced about a certain product and turn those into blog posts. Yes, you may have to do a little bit of editing in the process but you won’t have to be start from scratch in order to kick off your blogging process.
Taking the time to outline appropriately research and share the blogging responsibilities will make it easier for you to make time for blogging in your marketing strategy.
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