Creating relevant content is key to your content marketing strategy, but how do you get there?
Gone are the days of radio ads and billboards, flyers and attracting new customers purely through word-of-mouth marketing. Today, most customers find the businesses with which they want to interact online, which means that businesses need to have a developed digital marketing strategy in place if they want to be successful.
Online marketing incorporates various elements, including things like search engine optimization (SEO) integration, social media marketing, and content marketing. The latter–content marketing–is especially important and can make or break a business’s online success.
Content marketing refers to the development of content–all content online–that is designed to attract and enthuse customers. Blogging is one of the best ways to contribute to a content marketing strategy, but only when done correctly. Here’s a look into the importance of keeping a blog and how to choose blog topics that are relevant to your audience–
Why Keep a Blog?
A 2018 article published by HubSpot speaks to the many reasons why blogging should be a fundamental part of your content marketing strategy. According to the author of the article, these reasons include:
- Blogging drives traffic. If you want to get more people on your website, thereby potentially increasing your conversion and sales rates, blogging may be part of the solution. This is because your blog is a huge collection of all of the things that make content marketing successful: keywords, relevant content, authoritative links, and your expertise on a given topic. The more you blog, and the more great content with relevant keywords you post, the easier it will be for search engines to recognize you, moving you to the top of the search results page. And because a whopping 75 percent of users never scroll past the first page of first results, if you’re not on there, you could be missing out.
- Blogging may even be better than social media. Your blog doesn’t just act as a source of information for your customers; it can also serve as a platform for communication with customers, too. You can open your blog up to comments (always reply to your customers’ comments, good and bad), link to different forums where users can chat, or encourage users to share your blog.
- Blogging is something that customers feel good about. People trust blogs, and when you use a blog to tell customers more about you, you’re connecting with them in a unique way. Your blog allows you to do everything from serving as an authority on a particular topic to highlight your brand personality to differentiate yourself from your competitors and more.
How to Select Relevant Blog Topics for Your Customers
Okay, so you know that keeping a blog is important. But how exactly do you develop content, and choose blog topics, that your customers will actually enjoy?
The first step is to identify your target market. You can’t write a blog that everyone will enjoy – to whom are you advertising, and whom would you like to read the blog and buy whatever it is you’re offering?
The next step is to figure out what your target audience wants or needs. This can be done with a little research, such as demographic analysis, looking at your competitors’ strategies, and even point-blank asking customers what they’d like to see more of/what they’re looking for in a company like yours.
Next, move onto some topic research using the information you’ve garnered above. Again, consider checking out what your competitors are blogging about – this can be a great way to generate ideas. You can also use Google Keyword Planner after you’ve generated a list of potentially relevant keywords and content topic ideas.
Our Content Marketing Team Can Help
If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to blogging, have no idea what you should be writing about, or aren’t confident in your writing abilities, working with a professional digital marketing agency can be a worthwhile investment. At NUVEW Web Solutions, we maintain a team of SEO specialists, digital marketing pros, and professional content writers and bloggers who are ready to serve you. To learn more about our digital marketing services and how we can help, please call us at 219-323-3343 or send us a message requesting more information.
