How to Use Blogging to Gain New Customers

Blogging is a powerful tool for every business website. But just as with running a successful business, there is a right way to produce the best results.

I get asked two questions regularly about “blogs.” Why should I blog? And can’t I just have a website? Having a blog is part of having a website. The blog format lets you share all the knowledge, wisdom, and experience your customers seek from a partner they can trust.

Some people perceive a “blog” as only for personal, informal, or non-professional commentary. This is not true. So, instead of thinking about labels and definitions, let’s focus on the format and how this format can help us target our market and build our business.

Think of Blogging as a Content Format

What is a blog?
A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.
Wikipedia

Let’s move beyond the “official” definition of “blog” and think of how we can use this format to our advantage. Instead, open your mind to using blogging as a platform and structure to add all the great content you want to include on your site. Content that will sell your Expertise, Authority, and Trust to potential customers.

Information that you know your customers are looking for and can use. You know what that is! The concerns your established customers regularly relay to you. The questions you get asked all the time

Your “blog” can have instructional or troubleshooting guides, helpful tips, Q&As, or downloads. The sky is the limit. There are no restrictions on using this format to serve up the content on your website that will benefit your market. And you won’t get thrown in the pokey if you are not informal enough.

So, let’s not box ourselves in by thinking that having a blog requires writing about the latest fad, food, or fashion, or that you need to blog every single day. Instead, you write about what you know that instills confidence and trust in your business.

While tons of blogs fit the fad, food, fashion paradigm, your blog and content library can be the professional product/service resource you need to cater to your current and new customers. You can make your blog unique to your company, product, and customer needs.

Be Unique; Be You

Personality matters. That is where the “conversational tone” comes into play. You want to talk to your site visitors, not at them. You want to write as your customers talk. If that is informal, so be it. Personality can help you stand out from others (and AI) in your space.

If you think about it, there is only one you. Using you to your advantage helps your content stand out from all the other possibly generic blah-blah-blah that isn’t anything special. Also, keep in mind that showing your personality doesn’t necessarily mandate “informal,” either.

Be yourself -- that's how you stand out from all the noise and your competitors.

Is Blogging Dead?

“I’ve heard blogging was a fad that’s over.” I’ve had several folks looking to improve their online exposure make this statement. They couldn’t be further from the truth, both from an E-E-A-T perspective, but blogs help with that all-important SEO.

Could it just be that they are looking to avoid the hard work of adding content to build out their site? Could be. I’m not going to sugarcoat it—writing good stuff takes time and effort. But the alternative is to remain a brochureware website, which is neither practical nor effective.

So let’s not allow semantics to come into play. Maybe you do not “need” a blog on your site, but you’d better darned well be adding content regularly and doing it correctly. In that case, why not use the blog format to accomplish that?

In WordPress, you organize your content using dated, categorized posts. You don’t have to call it a “blog.” You can call it whatever you like. Resource Library, Product Tips, How Tos — you get the idea.

However, from a usability perspective, it is always best to categorize your content in a way that makes sense to site visitors. That’s what a blog enables you to do.

Keep in mind that many online users look for a website’s “Blog” area to find the articles, information, and resources they seek. And if they like what they see, they subscribe! You then have the privilege of being invited into the interested party’s inbox. That’s called a marketing opportunity!

Adding valuable content will never be “dead” for credible business websites. “Blogs” are still a great way to organize and categorize all your content, beyond the pages that rarely change (About, Contact, FAQ, Services, etc.).

Let’s Talk About How You Can Use a Blog Format

Having a blog is a great way to publish content directed at your target market. Start a new post, add headlines, paragraphs, images, and bulleted lists, and preview and publish. Adding is easy; creating great content to add — not as much. Writing great content takes practice and skill-building. (I use Grammarly to help me out.)

The fact is that adding new content is the lifeblood of any successful website. Without regularly adding new content, you have an online brochure—nothing special. No reason to subscribe; no reason to come back.

Brochures rarely rank well in search engines. Why should they when so many other alternatives offer a wealth of information? Nor are they viewed as having expertise, authority, or trust. Just think about that for a moment before you decide to nix using a blog format.

Blog Starter Tips

Create your framework. We want to organize all our articles so site visitors can find the info they’re looking for. So sit down and develop a handful of categories that you know your potential (and current) customers could use information about. Then, create five headlines for articles that would fit within each. Boom! You’ve just made the starting structure for your new “blog”!
Make sure category names are specific and intuitive. Create categories that make sense to site visitors while allowing you to organize your posts intuitively. Avoid industry jargon or buzzwords that your readers may not understand or be able to relate to.
Assemble helpful, relevant content. Content isn’t a daily or weekly sales pitch about how great your business is. Instead, you want to provide information that goes to the heart of showing your expertise and why folks should do business with you — by helping them out. Keep track of what you get asked about your product or service. Better yet, what do you see your customers struggle with most? Help them by writing about it.

Think about SEO — from the very start. Before creating your content, develop a keyword strategy. This way, you have your list of terms ready to go as you create new content.
Format for reading. You land on a site and scan; you don’t read. So we need to write in a way that encourages reading. Make an effort to keep your posts concise. We do this with short sentences and no more than a few sentences per paragraph. Uses bulleted lists to make quick, scannable points. Throw in a few sub-headlines to break things up. For more comprehensive topics, consider breaking them into a series of more focused posts or offering them as an e-course.
Offer the ability to share. The reality is that website visitors do not share as many articles as they used to. However, we still want to offer them the opportunity to share if the urge hits them. There are a bunch of WordPress plugins that provide sharing capabilities. Choose the one that offers the look, feel, and features that meet your needs.
Post often enough to keep visitors’ interest and to encourage a following. Quality posts take time, but if you are an expert in your field, you should have no problem typing at least once a week about trends, sites, tutorials, or info you want to share. On the other hand, infrequent posting does not lend to growing an active subscriber list or following.
Include at least one cool graphic representing the content’s theme or meaning. After all, the online medium is visual.

“Blog” for the Win and Market Domination

Okay, market domination may be a bit dramatic, but that certainly doesn’t preclude you from outperforming your competitors by simply adding great content! Using the blog format gives you that opportunity to shine.

Business “blogs” (or whatever you want to label them) are powerful marketing, reputation management, and customer service tools that no serious business should overlook or underestimate the importance of managing correctly.

At your service,