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Building a Successful Company Blog

Having a company blog is critical. Just as important, however, is ensuring that you regularly and appropriately contribute to that blog. Consistently updating your website with new content not only keeps your clients coming back to the site regularly, but it also helps keep your site from slipping in search engine rankings. For many companies, however, choosing new, relevant, interesting blog topics can be the most challenging part of the equation.

What You Need To Know About Blogging
First, it’s important to note that there is a big difference between on-site SEO (Search Engine Optimization) content and a company blog. SEO content is text on your site that incorporates keywords and keyword phrases designed to draw in site traffic through search engines. Often, this content is written in short, blog-style, frequently updated postings. However, while SEO content may be informative, its primary purpose is to increase site traffic.

A company blog (sometimes called a site blog or corporate blog) may sometimes incorporate keywords and keyword phrases, but it goes far beyond that. A reputable company blog is a source of information for your target audience and clientele. It is a way of demonstrating and sharing your industry knowledge, establishing your corporate image, addressing changes in your field, or informing users about new products or services. A company blog is your company’s voice.

The Customer is Always Right
One of the best ways to determine what to write about for your company blog is to ask your customers what they want to read about. When people become experts in their field, it’s easy to forget that clients and newcomers may not be familiar with all of the industry terminology and history. A company blog is a great place to share that knowledge; it establishes thought leadership and demonstrates a willingness to create informed clients. When sending direct email blasts, consider asking clients what they’d like to read about on the blog. Post about it on Facebook and see what kinds of topics and conversations arise.

If you hire a professional writer to maintain your company blog, have him or her spend some time on your website and ask for a list of two to four dozen article topics. These can be in the form of questions or general concepts. Many times, just having this outsider’s input is an incredibly helpful way for industry experts to see what a third-party observer would want to read about and what questions s/he would have upon arriving at your website.

Start At The Beginning
When starting your company blog, start with the basics: terminology, product uses, service benefits, and the like. Make sure your webmaster provides you with the ability to “tag” your blog articles with keywords so you can automatically compile an archive as your blog grows. Enable commenting so your visitors can provide feedback, and assign someone to regularly review and respond appropriately to this input. Finally, enable social media sharing so that when your visitors enjoy an article, they can easily post it to their social media streams where it will reach others and potentially draw them onto your site.

TribalVision offers blogging and content consultation services. Connect with us today for more information.