Who are you blogging for?
Insightful, regular blog posts help your website to look ‘of the moment’ and drive traffic to it. However, just uploading any old thing won’t help you as much as a planned out, relevant post.
Blogging for business is another type of content businesses need. It’s a relatively new phenomena though and is largely misunderstood.
One of the most common mistakes we see for online content is to focus on the point of sale.
“Look at our brand-new product, it’ll be so good for you; you should buy it.” The problem with this is, no-one’s reading a blog to be convinced of your product.
Browsing with intent to buy is a thing of the past. If you want to convince a potential customer that what you do is relevant to their needs, you need to find each other much earlier in their customer journey.
Who reads blogs?
People read blogs when they are looking for knowledge or guidance about what’s best for them. Your post will have more value to that person if it offers neutral, unbiased advice rather than a sales pitch.
Biased opinion diminishes trust (“our product is the best – you should definitely buy it regardless of your needs”). If you’re not right for the consumer, they’ll leave your site and go elsewhere.
So the trick is to build trust through blogging. Thought pieces are far more engaging for the casual reader, so reframe your content with this in mind.
What to write about
If you owned a legal firm specialising in wills, don’t write a blog post about the services you offer. Without the background knowledge, this would be meaningless to someone browsing your site.
Instead, write the post about “Why is a will important”? By using SEO best practices, anybody searching for that phrase will find your blog.
Who will be reading it? Most likely a person who’s been thinking about getting their will sorted for a few days. They’re uncertain about how to start, and the thought is keeping them up at night. By 2am, they’ve decided to Google it and have found your blog.
By telling them the information they need, you’ve helped to establish trust. Now they’re more likely to return to you when they’re ready to engage your services. Do mention that you can help them, but don’t make it the focus of your post.
If you ran a private health care provider, no potential patient cares that you’ve just bought the new super-elite high-def multiscope. There’s no point writing about that because it’s not going to be relevant to 99% of your readership.
People are coming to your blog because they have a health concern and are seeking reassurance. Build trust by removing uncertainty.
“What to expect at your health screening”, for example, would help to make the patient feel more comfortable about turning up to a potentially anxiety-inducing situation.
If you were a digital marketing company, you wouldn’t write a post saying, “we’ll write your blogs for you; we’re really good at it!” You’d write about why blogging is important and who it should be aimed at…
*ahem*
Why it matters
The point is: what information can your blog give to your reader that builds trust and helps convert them into a customer?
Blogging is a kind of digital advertising that – while slightly time consuming – is free to do. Use it to your advantage.
By writing blog posts, you can target your audience before they’re even thinking about a purchase.
Written by Tom Young
Image by VectorLady
