If you’ve ever looked into getting a website built, you will likely have noticed that most websites have a pretty tried and tested layout and menu structure. They will have a home page, an about us page, a services/product page(s), a contact page and a news page. Some will have more sub-sections and other pages depending on their business but most sites include these basics, and for good reason. 

The other thing you might have noticed is that the news/blog/updates page (or whatever you choose to call it)  often can become a little neglected. Much like starting a diet in January, we all start with good intentions but rarely make it beyond a month.  You may even have scheduled each staff member to take it in turn but after a while, more often than not, it ends up being the occasional  ‘we’ve won an award’ or ‘Merry Christmas’ post that gets thrown up. This can look pretty bad to anyone coming to your website and even raises the question of ‘is this business even open?’ if nothing has been added in months, or even years.

We’ve asked our blogging friends, Erudite Digital, to walk you through why you should consider using the blog on your website, some ideas for content and how to go about making it happen!

You might be thinking blogging is for 20 year old influencers who love to travel the world and show off their insta-lifestyle (COVID put a stop to that), or it’s for stay-at-home-mums who want to showcase their amazing home decor inspo or boho-chic outfits to their army of loyal followers.

While many people have become ‘bloggers’ as a creative outlet or a side hustle for making money, the blog section on your website is an important weapon in your arsenal if used well.

Showcase Your Business

Regardless of what you call your blog (and there are some terrible names out there) a blog section offers outsiders a window into your business, who you are, your staff team and culture, what their experience might be with you, key information they might want to know… the list is endless. 

Search Engine Optimisation

A blog is a great opportunity to write about content that you want to be indexed on Google for. This will help your website rank better for the things you want to be found for and is an integral  part of your wider SEO strategy. 

3 Top Tips to Remember When Blogging!

Be Consistent

One of the keys to blogging is consistency. It is about showing up regularly with useful, engaging and entertaining content that adds value to your site visitors and gives them a glimpse of what working with you might be like, it’s creating touch points for people to engage with your content.

Use High Quality Imagery

When it comes to writing a blog, having quality imagery with it is important. It breaks up the written sections, the photos support the content and they make it more engaging. Be sure not to use copyrighted images unless you are keen on a lawsuit (Google is not the place to source images) and make sure their are of a high enough resolution to look good on a big screen, while remaining a reasonably small file size so they don’t take weeks to load, thus penalizing your website speed score. 

Target Your Audience

Have an idea of who you want to be reading your blog. This could be as broad as ‘a client’ or ‘a new lead’ but the more specific you are as to who that target audience are, the more useful you content will be and the easier it will be to write for them. Create a persona or an avatar of who you perfect client/ customer/ target audience is and write for them. 

15 Content Ideas

So to help make it easier, here is a list of ideas for content that you could use for your business:

1. Write about how you started your business.
   People always love to hear the story of where a business has come from and the journey involved

2. Talk about something that failed.
   Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of it- tell a story of a time you have failed and the lessons you have learned.

3. Get someone in a complementary industry to write a guest post for you
   This is great exposure for them and you and allows you to get engagement from their audience

4. Share your best tips
   Collate a list of the best tips that you would give to a client or customer

5. Interview a team member.
   A great way to bring personality to your business and website and provide a way for people to connect with your business. Keep it interesting and fun

6. Run a competition on your blog.
   A great way of getting people to your website is to incentivise them with a competition 

7. Collate your most asked questions and answer them as blog posts.
   Possibly your greatest source of content ideas is making a list of questions you regularly get asked and writing a blog about each one.

8. Pick out 3 people who have inspired you and why
   A great way to talk about people who have made an impact on your life

9. Talk about a charity you partner with and any fundraising you do for them
   People love to hear about businesses that give back, it is also a great way to promote the work the charity is doing. 

10. Which skills should someone have if they want to go into your industry?
    A great way of showcasing the skillset required for your job/industry

11. What Is The best part of your job
    Talk about why you do what you do, about making a difference and how passionate you are about it

12. What Is Your Mission Statement?
    Why do you do what you do? 

13. Share about any Upcoming Events you are speaking at?
    This shows your expertise and also lets people know where they can hear you

14. Write a recommendation of a company you have worked with sharing your experience
    A great way of adding value to another business in a complementary field.

15. A day in the life
    Show what a ‘normal’ day in  your business might look like. 

How to make it happen

So you now know why you should blog, and you’ve got some ideas of what you should blog about, the only thing left to decide is how to make it happen. 

There are two different ways we suggest doing this:

1. Choose one person who will be responsible for the delivery of the blog. Their role will include putting together a content plan, decide who is doing each blog, setting a timeline for which each blog needs to be completed and ensure they have access to the website to upload the blog. 

2. Partner with an agency that will make do this all for you. This will maintain consistency in voice and allow you to focus on what you do best. They might not offer the technical expertise as someone trained in your discipline but they should make up for that in other ways.

And Finally…

Whether you do this in-house or you out-source it, it is important to maintain consistency in how often you blog, the quality of content you blog about and the tone of voice. Steer clear of controversial topics, or anything sensitive - the last thing you need is an attack of keyboard warriors in the comment section of your blog. Find a tone of voice and frequency of posting that feels genuine and maintainable, make a plan, and get blogging.

Thanks to the guys at Erudite for their help and advice on making blogs part of your website. Why not get started this week? If this is something you’re interested in doing but don’t have the people or time to make it happen, then let us know and we’ll happily make introductions to the Erudite team who can sort you out.