5 Steps To Write The Perfect Business Blog Post
Blogging for a business isn’t easy. Not even if you have the most awesome writing skills. When writing a blog for a business website there’s more to blogging than just writing well.
If you are a business owner, business blogger, or content writer and you want to learn how to drive more traffic to your business through website, for that one of the best ways to rank high on SERP(Search Engine Results Pages) is key to increasing the traffic to your website, then you’re in the right place. Learn how to grow and retain your readership as potential customers with the following practical tips provided by top content strategist and writer Manuela Willbold that are totally doable.
Step # 1: Compare, Analyze, and Note Down
The key is to understand the niche/industry you’re writing for. You will now read blog posts for a few days with an analytical frame of mind to learn what people are looking for.
Analyze why you choose one blog post over another in your chosen niche even when both are about the same topic. Which are the elements that determine your choice? Note them down as success criteria and apply them in your writing. Whatever it is that got you interested in a blog post or an article, you need to incorporate that in your own writing.
This can be humor, and entertainment factor, or reliable facts and statistics from authority sources. When I wrote blog posts for a dental practice, the most popular blogs through organic searches on search engines were posts about dental procedures or treatments with advice on how to prevent dental problems or articles about the cost of treatments.
Read blogs of your competitors and check via SEO tools like Ahrefs and others that I recommend on my blog which of their posts get the most traffic and which keywords they use. Different genres have different intentions and it is vital that you figure out what you should write about first to attract the right audience for your business website.
Step # 2: Research comes before Writing
Before you hit your keyboard to start writing, hit it to do some research on the topic you need to cover. If you’ve already written something on it, all the more reason to do some fresh research or see how you can learn from the statistics of your previous post on the topic.
There’s also a whole different side when you are researching to write as a blogger. You have to optimize your post for SEO to get the results you’re looking for.
Search Engine Optimization — that’s what SEO means, is all about making your content easily readable and attractive for search engines like Google so they can be tracked easily.
The aim: to feature on the first page of Google and other search engines, preferably towards the top, for the relevant keywords that will lead to conversions eventually for your business.
If you are honest with yourself, you already know why. When you search Google or any other search engine for something, how often do you go beyond the first page to check out the results? Therefore, one of the best ways to rank high on what’s technically known as SERP — Search Engine Results Pages — is key to increasing the traffic to your website.
If you have done your research as suggested in step 1 then you should now be in a position to identify the most relevant keywords for your business blog. In my course “How to create hot SEO-friendly content” on Udemy and SeekaHost University I cover this in much more detail but here are the various factors you need to consider, so look out for:
- Search volume (either worldwide or for a specific country you focus on)
- Keyword difficulty (the harder it is to rank for this keyword, the more work (backlinks, etc.) is required to be found for this on search engines
- CPC (cost per click) — the more people pay in adverts for this keyword, the higher the value of it, meaning the more important it is for conversions
- Parent topics and similar terms — research other terms that cover the same topic and use a variation of such terms in your text
Do be careful, however. Don’t overuse keywords. Google, in particular, can spot keyword stuffing and punishes such a practice. It will not pick up your content if it finds an overuse of repeating keywords.
Google counts. It is the search engine giant, after all.
Step # 3: Make Your Title Compelling
Now that all your preparations are done, you can start writing. But you’re writing to wow your readers. So, your title has to be catchy. Something that will grab your readers’ and search engine’s attention.
This is where all that analysis you have done will be of real help to you. Add at least one of your researched keywords in your title. This is important as search engines bots crawl titles first to establish the topic and focus of an article.
Your title is your all-important h1 or Heading 1, that is. If you’re used to working on Google docs, you may be thinking at this point that Title is different from Heading 1. You’re right, of course. However, in the world of search engines — your title is your h1. This term simply means bigger than the rest. Then the font size gets progressively smaller as you go down the list of Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. However, it is vital to add relevant or related keywords in all titles of your article as well as in the text body. This is especially important in the first two paragraphs of your article.
So, make your title catchy for your readers. Make it SEO-friendly to attract more readers. Tough ask at the beginning, but you’ll soon get a hang of it.
Step # 4: Structure Your Writing
There are some basic rules for writing blog posts. Those are key to a successful post.
● Keep your paragraphs short. A range of 40–50 words per paragraph is good to follow. Short paragraphs make it easier for readers to quickly glance through. You can also make words bold or add images to break up the content.
● Use headings and subheadings. Make them clear and catchy. These, too, are tools that will help your readers to quickly understand what you’re covering in your post. And for search engines to know what your content is about.
● Match the tone of your writing with your topic. Your tone for writing about a natural disaster somewhere, and about a celebrity wedding cannot be the same, right? Your tone also needs to match the genre. If you are writing as an expert on a topic like the national economy, you need to adopt a serious, knowledgeable tone. If, on the other hand, you are writing about holidaying somewhere, you’re still the expert, your tone needs to be conversational or more entertaining, though.
● Remember to throw in some humor, unless you are writing about something particularly tragic. Good humor never fails.
● Edit your post until you have eliminated all repetitions and spelling and grammar errors. You can use spell checkers for this.
Apply these tips to make your blog posts great and attract more readers and potential clients.
Step # 5: Pay Attention to the Blog Design
Remember that the visuals are as important as writing. Design your blog, and your blog posts, with strong visuals to attract visitors. They need to be invited to stay for a good period of time on your website and they should be encouraged to visit other relevant pages. This can be done by adding buttons to other pages/articles or providing reference hyperlinks in the text body.
Use photographs, infographics, cartoons, videos (preferably from your own/business YouTube channel), and other visual elements as appropriate in your blog posts. Make sure that they add value to your writing and that they lead your visitors to other relevant sources you offer, e.g. products/services, social media accounts, etc.
Understanding how to do this is vital and learning digital skills like WordPress publishing, social media marketing and much more can really help you, your business, and your business website stand out. We teach such skills and more like SEO in-depth at SeekaHost University.
So…
As I said, it’s not easy and it will take time and effort, but it is worth it, because it’s going to make you think straighter, articulate better, create something more meaningful, and as a result, get you the results you desire eventually. Once you’ve mastered those blogging techniques you can apply them to any business website or blog. So get started today!
Author: Manuela Willbold
Blogger and Educator by Passion | Contributor to many Business Blogs in the United Kingdom | Fascinated to Write Blogs in News & Education I have completed a journalism summer course at the London School of Journalism and manage various blogs.
