So You’ve Decided to Start Blogging. Now What?
Posting on your company blog is quickly becoming one of the best online marketing tools for businesses. Search engines like Google love websites that are updated regularly, have keywords that are relevant to people’s online searches, and are shared by people on social media.
So having a blog on your website that is frequently updated, full of great keywords that are relevant to your business, and can be shared by anyone who reads it is the perfect way to increase your website’s odds of showing up organically in searches.
But this article isn’t about why you should blog. You’re already there.
(If you’re not fully convinced that blogging is worth your time, HubSpot’s article Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing does a fantastic job of outlining the reasons for and benefits of blogging.)
This article is about what, exactly, you should blog about.
Know What Your Audience Likes to Read About
Step 1 in any marketing venture is to know who your target audience is. The goal is to attract the RIGHT people to your website and give them what they want.
So, figure out who they are and what they want! In the marketing world, we call the different types of people you want to attract to your business “User Personas.”
You probably already know a lot about your customers, but it’s helpful to dive a little deeper into their details. Getting to know their pain points, desires, motivations, etc. will help you answer their questions and solve their problems with your blogging.
Having trouble identifying your personas? Here’s an article on creating personas with examples.
What to Blog About?
If you know who you’re writing for, and you have ideas for each stage of the buyer journey that they are in, you’re almost ready to start clacking away on the keyboard. And here’s a little motivation for you: You will be helping people! Your goal is to improve your customers’ lives.
Improving their life can be as simple as making them smile or giving them a nugget of information they’d find useful.
Here are more ways blogs help people:
- Entertaining them
- Helping them do something
- Teaching them something
- Answering their questions
- Letting them connect with you and your business emotionally
- Getting them involved
- Making them think deeply
- Giving them something valuable to share with their friends
But the underlying reason to blog is to make sales! Your words can help guide your customers through their journey toward making a purchase.
The 3 Stages of the Buyer’s Journey: What to Blog about for Each Stage
Stage 1: They’re thinking about it.
When customers are in the first stage, they could be looking to get inspiration or ideas. Say they’re thinking about renovating their kitchen.
They would be interested in blogs about kitchen trends, kitchen products, and before and afters of kitchen renovation projects.
Or maybe they’re thinking about replacing their bathtub because their current one is old and leaking water into the basement.
If they’re looking to repair or upgrade something, Stage 1 blogs should address their problems. Topics like, “How to Tell if I Need a Bathroom Upgrade?” or “Top Ten Bathtub Problems” can help bring potential customers closer to the decision to do repairs or replacements.
Here are some blog format ideas for customers in Stage 1:
- Product Reviews
- Inspirational or Motivational
- Infographic
Stage 2: They’re looking into the details.
Once your customer feels that now is the time to do the kitchen upgrade or get the repairs, they will start looking into the details. They want to know what their options are. Some customers want to know about the processes, the ins and outs, and the pros and cons of all their options.
Blogs that address Stage 2 would be customer stories that talk about projects from start to finish. Or you could blog about the tools you use to do the job they want done.
A blog about the different tiers of service would also address your customers’ need for details.
Here are some blogs to help people in Stage 2:
- Customer Showcase
- Highlight a Product or Service
- Before and After
- Tools of the Trade
- Industry Myths
Stage 3: They’re ready to buy and deciding who to buy from.
When people are ready to make a purchase, they are in Stage 3. This is when blogs about your company, your people, and your services will help seal the deal.
For Stage 3 customers, try these blog formats to help them choose you:
- AMA: Ask Me Anything
- Testimonials
- A series where you walk them through a process
- Case Study
- Posts about WHY you do things the way you do
And those examples are just a few of the dozens of blog formats you can use. Click here to find out which blog formats that work for our clients:
Top 12 Blog Formats that Bring Traffic.
Create a Content Calendar to Keep Blogging Organized
I bet that reading those blog ideas and a format to write them in made you think of some posts that would be easy for you to do. There are probably some that you might actually have fun writing (perhaps the rant? 🙂 )!
So now, take the ideas you like and plug them into a content calendar.
Your content calendar is simply a document you create that helps you plan and organize topics to write about in advance. With it, you can plan to write about similar topics together. One month can be for kitchen renovation topics, the next can be all about the customer: problems they have and how to solve them.
The ideal content calendar will outline what type of blog format you plan to use every day. It will help keep you on track. When creating the calendar, you select the format you want to write. Choose the blog format based on which stage of the buyer journey you want to talk about.
Here’s an example of a content calendar that outlines the blog format a month:
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| Profile | Testimonial | List | How to | Trend | Fun | Curation |
| Feature Story | Interview | Product Review | FAQ | List | Video | AMA |
| Fun | Case Study | Event | Newsjack | How to | Infographic | Tools of the Trade |
| Guide | Best of Web | Procedure | Video | Rant | Guest Post | Series |
Look at your calendar often to help keep the topics on your mind, so that when you sit down to write, you’ll have the words flowing out of you like water from a tap.
If You’re not Blogging, Start Today
Take advantage of the benefits of blogging. Your pages will be found when customers search for answers to their questions. Your words will help relieve the customer service burden by taking the worry out of choosing the best place to buy.
Over time, you show people that you’re a trusted expert and your website will gain authority.
Blogging is part of Nyche Marketing’s Living Website package, which includes SEO, content marketing, social media, Pay Per Click advertising, and marketing automation.
So if you’re not already blogging, start today!