Five ways to use a blog as part of your content strategy

On Tuesday I flew to Melbourne to attend the first ProBlogger event. The room was filled with 150 aspiring bloggers – some more successful than others, but all with a keen interest in how to write and maintain an engaging blog.

We listened to a stellar line up of speakers including Darren Rowse, Chris Garrett, Yaro Starak, Collis Ta’eed and Pip Lincolne. Everyone there on the day went home with a head filled with ideas and ways to improve their blog.

It was great to see so many people get excited about blogging. Unfortunately a lot of businesses out there decide to have a blog on their site without any real thought about how it will support their business goals, let alone how it will fit in with an overall content strategy.

So if that’s you, here are five ways you can use a blog as part of your content strategy:

1. Respond to issues

One of the best things about blogs is the speed at which a new post can be published. So as part of your content strategy, incorporate how issues can be dealt with and responded to. Decide who can say what, and who is the right person to answer any comments that get left on the post.

If you have a lot of subscribers to your blog you will be able to quickly reach a large amount of customers with the facts. But don’t assume it’s the only channel you’ll need to communicate through. Have it as part of the mix.

2. Improve your SEO

By writing targeted blog posts you can help optimise your site for specific keywords and phrases as part of your SEO strategy – in the same way as article writing.  Say you worked for a company that makes blinds (for windows) and want to optimise for ‘blockout blinds’. You could write a whole series of posts on the types that are available, what you can use them for (children’s rooms, offices, rooms that get hot in summer). Make the posts useful, encourage discussion and boost your rankings.

3. Reinforce your key messages

This is obvious, but make sure your posts back up the key messages of your business. Have a clear understanding of who is likely to read your blog (which of your target audiences), and what you want them to know after visiting your blog. Think of posts that delve into the details of what you do, why you do it, and why you are better than your competitors. The trick is to keep the focus on the reader – so always focus on the ‘what’s in it for you’.

Remove ‘we’ from the conversation, so instead of:

We use the finest ingredients in our cupcakes.

Say

You’ll be able to taste the difference, as each cupcake contains only the finest ingredients.

4. Support product launches

Use your blog to review new products, publish tutorials on how to use new products, and run competitions to win new products.

5. Introduce key personnel

Most businesses have great employees who are always ‘behind the scenes’. Use the blog to introduce them so your customers get to know you better. If you run an e-commerce site, think about showing a day in the life of your order fillers.

I like the way that Coles Online (an Australian supermarket) has profiled some staff.

So now it’s over to you – how do you use  your blog as part of your content strategy?

If you need help figuring out where your blog sits within your content strategy, contact me for a content strategy consultation.