Your blog isn’t just a place for you and your employees to share your day-to-day thoughts and a behind-the-scenes look at your operation. Maybe that was the case in 2004 when Myspace had us reorganizing our Top 8 and learning basic HTML, but 20 years later, your brand’s blog should provide valuable insights, tips and advice — in other words, a place to turn potential customers into actual customers.
But blogging takes more effort than just throwing one article out there and calling it a year. Like all digital marketing strategies, blogging takes commitment and willingness to not only provide content for your audience, but to create a genuine connection with them. Personalizing your brand content makes you more relatable to your audience, but this takes both frequency and consistency to work.
So, what is to be gained from creating a modern blog strategy? Check out a few benefits to regularly scheduled blogging and how this time-honored digital marketing tool can still work to the advantage of your brand.
What are users searching for that leads them to your site? Nowadays, SEO is less about keyword stuffing and more about search intent — that is, users finding exactly what they’re looking for on your site. By writing about a wide range of topics related to your brand, you can reel in more users who may find your article helpful and share them with others. Search engines will notice this as well; websites that rank higher in search intent will consequently rank higher in organic search results. The more value you provide, the more valuable Google will see your brand.
The more valuable insights you share online, the more users will see you as an established expert in your industry. This in turn builds loyalty — customers will keep coming back to a source they trust and will even be more willing to share it with their friends, spreading your brand to more potential customers.
Those familiar with digital marketing may be familiar with the term “digital sawdust." For the uninitiated, “digital sawdust” refers to the practice of leveraging one piece of content into many different pieces of content on multiple channels. For example, one blog article could be turned into two quote cards to be posted on your brand’s Instagram. Both images can then be broken down even further into animations for your reels and stories. Essentially, you’re creating content from content, carving a piece of content to perfection, and leveraging the remaining “sawdust” across other media. So, your article won’t just live on the blog — pieces of it will be spread across your social media, email marketing and video.
The higher your page ranks and the wider its reach on search engines, the more eyeballs your blog will receive and the more clicks your blog will earn. Additionally, as you stick to a consistent blogging strategy and post regular, high-quality articles, Google will crawl your site more frequently as it detects newer content, potentially raising your SEO ranking.
As you build your blogging strategy, you may wonder just how frequently you should be publishing. It’s a great question — and unfortunately, one without a definitive answer. No hard and fast rule exists for how often your brand should publish an article, but the trick is consistency. Many brands find publishing monthly or at least twice quarterly to be sufficient, but whatever your goal is, stick with it. Google — and your audience — will notice if your frequency drops from two or three blogs per month to once every other month. Rather, stay the course. Whatever schedule you decide on, keep to it and keep your repeat users coming back regularly.
Ready to share your insights and establish your brand as a trusted industry leader? Let’s get started on a blogging strategy that works for your brand. Contact Jenna Ferrell at jferrell@mcdmarketing.com or call 309-346-2258 today!
