The Content Jedi Blog

This blog post is a reboot of one from a year ago, back when it wasn’t life-threatening to forget your mask when leaving the house.

This post has two important updates.

1) There’s more data showing that blogging works. According to HubSpot:

• Blogging is the third-most-common content marketing strategy for            businesses
• 80% of internet users interact with both social media sites and blogs
• Companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly       than companies that don't blog

2) I’ve decided to lean into the term, “blogging.” I’d been timid when speaking with prospects because, often, when people hear the word blog, they think of the personal diary kind. Consequently, I danced around it, referring to them as “articles” or “blog articles.” But the more success my clients had with my blogging services, the more I’ve committed to the word. I realized that if the purpose of blogging is to educate your audience then I could educate my prospects on their value.

The post below was originally published in December, 2019.
“Do I really need to blog?” is a question I hear from time to time, to which I reply, “Does your plain omelet really need delicious ingredients like salt, pepper, herbs, sharp cheddar cheese, and bacon (or impossible bacon)?” The answer is yes because blogging makes your business better just like bacon makes your omelet and everything better. According to HubSpot, the uber developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales:

“Companies that blog regularly compared to companies that don’t blog, average:

• 55% more web visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed web pages"

What that means in non-content nerd-speak is that blogging works, and it works because it shows your audience that you care.

Blogging Educates
A good blog provides useful information for readers that they could apply to their businesses or everyday lives. The publisher, Penguin Random House, leads by example. Their blog, The Perch, is a content-rich resource for writers and readers. They smartly hone in on this audience by focusing on the themes of Book Recommendations and Write Advice. The former includes staff picks on every genre under the sun, and the latter shares writing best practices from authors. Penguins also melt my heart, so there’s that.  

It’s About Them, Not You
The cardinal sin of blogging is promoting your business in your posts. Once readers sense that you’re trying to sell them something, they will leave and most likely never come back. There’s a term in my industry called bounce rate which is a record of the percentage of visitors who land on a website and leave instead of staying on a page or viewing other pages. A high bounce rate is bad, and you can bet that a promotional blog post will cause folks to bounce as quickly as possible. There are plenty of opportunities to promote your business, like the rest of the content on your website, digital ads, direct mail, newsletters, and so on. Just don’t make your blog one of them.  

Consistency Keeps Customers
Do you know what’s worse than not blogging? A dead blog. Ever go to a company’s blog page and notice that their most recent blog post is from August of 2016? That’s a dead blog. It sends a bad message: I stopped caring about you a long time ago. It also indicates that your content is not a priority, which can give your customers a lot of pause. It’s imperative to blog consistently to keep them engaged. Come contract renewal time, you don’t want your customers to question your content commitment and go out to bid. If you want to keep customers, you need to keep them interested.

Blogger Beware
Whether your blogger is in-house or contracted, be very selective. As I’ve previously written, always choose a professional content writer, or you risk looking, well, unprofessional. Do your due diligence when selecting a professional writer because there are many unqualified ones. Also be leary of content factories that produce sterile and duplicated blog posts.

Now go forth and show your audience some blogging TLC.

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