Blogs have become a considerable part of the digital marketing landscape in the 21st century, revolutionizing how businesses communicate with customers. In addition to helping boost their digital visibility, regular blog posts keep businesses in regular contact with their audience, keeping them abreast of internal news and new market trends.
However, what is a blog and why are they such an important aspect of digital marketing? Read on to find out!
What are blogs?
The term ‘blog’ originated from the word weblog, which was coined at the end of the 1990s before being shortened to ‘blog’ a couple of years later. Since then, blogs have emerged as a key component of the digital marketing world, becoming a section of a business’s website that’s regularly updated with news, opinions, and educational pieces.
Businesses now see blogs as a means of longer-form communication than social media, designed to engage and encourage dialogue with their audience.
Why blog?
Depending on your audience, there are several benefits of keeping the blog section of your website regularly updated:
Knowledge sharing
Blogs are a brilliant way of sharing knowledge with your customers and audience. They offer you the opportunity to speak to them, perhaps with educational pieces about topics within your industry or about products that might solve a familiar pain point.
Often, blogs have a comments section that allows the audience to interact and open a dialogue about the topic, building a sense of community with like-minded individuals.
Comparing products and services
Many businesses use blogs as an opportunity to advertise the benefits of their value proposition over those of their competitors. This often takes the form of comparison articles, which take one of their leading items and compare it with similar products on the market.
The aim is to accentuate your product's benefits over those of your competitors without overtly rubbishing or criticizing them. By showcasing your brand in its best light, you aim to convert more sales and increase your market share.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing service that maximizes your digital visibility on leading search engines like Google. Regularly posting new and relevant blog content, with targeted and relevant keywords to the topic and your industry, helps ensure your website remains at the top of search engine results.
What are the characteristics of a good blog?
Several elements go into making a blog work successfully. Here’s what to include and do to give yours the best chance of success:
Engage your audience
Many businesses make the mistake of writing for themselves rather than their audience, especially when trying to educate on a complex topic. The trick is to keep the tone conversational and informal to make the content relatable to your readers and keep them engaged.
Interactivity
Including opportunities for your readers to interact with your content is another excellent way of building your audience and increasing the likelihood of converting into sales. Whether you open a discussion by encouraging them to share their thoughts with you or provide interesting backlinks within your content to allow them to do some further reading, people love to interact with content.
Use multimedia
Another common trap businesses fall into when creating blogs is focusing on the written word. Although words are important, breaking the content up with pictures helps many readers visually and adds essential context to your point. Videos are another great tool to help explain a topic in more detail in an engaging and entertaining manner.
How to write an engaging blog post
Here are five top tips for writing an engaging blog post:
1. Know your audience
Understanding who’s going to read your post helps you create content that meets their interests and needs
2. Catchy headlines
A catchy and exciting headline is essential to hook your audience and sets the tone for what’s to come.
3. Use visuals
Images and videos are a great way to increase engagement by breaking up long blocks of text.
4. Make it easy to read
Subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs make your content easy to read and consume.
5. Call-to-action
The call to action (CTA) is essential to keeping your audience engaged with your business. Ask them to comment or subscribe to your blog, or encourage them to learn more on another page on your website.