What are your 2018 goals for your business blog? Have you made any progress, or have they fallen by the wayside? If you’ve forgotten all about them or you haven’t kept up with them, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad blogger, it means it’s time to regroup and move forward with a different strategy.
Here are our top tips on how to conquer all your new year’s content resolutions.
One of the most popular blog-related goals every year is to post more often. Unfortunately, it can also be one of the hardest to achieve, because not only do you have to figure out a schedule that works, you also have to gather enough resources to execute it. Instead of setting nebulous goals like posting daily, weekly or monthly, try to set something more tangible by looking at your competitors’ blogs and figuring out how much your team can handle before you get diminishing returns.
But no matter how often you decide to post, make sure you stay consistent. As long as you’re posting regularly, you’ll be able to find a groove that both you and your followers will love.
Solution: It helps to have a working editorial calendar in place. That way, you can plan and schedule topics ahead of time. We recommend planning out for at least one month, but 1 – 3 months is best. Sit down with pen and paper and start brainstorming all the different topics you want to write about. Then, assign those topics to a slot in your calendar. You can always make changes as you go, but this is a great place to start.
As we get further into 2018, the demand for long-form content only seems to increase. Google favors long, targeted pieces that are rich with keywords, and readers want to see content with real value. Of course, you want each blog post to hit all these benchmarks, but sometimes it can be hard to dedicate enough time to write well-thought-out material. If you’re guilty of writing just to have something to put up on your blog, then this goal was probably on your list this year.
Solution: Unless you can make more time for the writing process, it might be a good idea to start looking into whether it makes sense to buy blog content. By outsourcing your content writing needs to a reputable content development agency, you’re guaranteed consistent and high-quality content. Plus, you can still have power over the topics, tone, images and scheduling – all while saving yourself time and headaches.
If you were hoping to start optimizing your blog content for Google, or looking to improve your SEO, this goal is likely familiar to you. Keywords play a crucial role in generating traffic to your blog. And because it’s so important to get them right, it can be intimidating to really prioritize this.
Solution: First, it helps to get a firm understanding of what keywords are, the different types of keywords and how exactly to use them in your blog content. Then, start identifying both primary and long-tail keywords that make sense for your website and your target audience. Keep these organized in a single document that you can refer back to every time you write a new post.
How do I find out what my keywords are? Well, they typically coincide with popular topics in your industry. This is because keywords are another way of answering the question, “what is my audience searching for the most?” You can also start getting into keyword analytics to help you make more informed choices and actually track their performance on your blog.
Picking a strategy, implementing it and actually sticking with it are common struggles for bloggers. Just creating one is challenging on its own, let alone following through. That’s because a blog strategy encompasses a lot of different aspects, from figuring out what to write to deciding how to promote each blog post. Even so, a good blog strategy is absolutely essential because it’s going to guide you through all of 2018 and even inform your strategy for 2019 and beyond. If you’re going to stick to any of your resolutions, let it be this one.
Solution: One of the most effective methods for developing a blog strategy is to first create a buyer persona and then use that information to structure the rest. Buyer personas help you understand who your audience is, what their habits are and what they might want from you. Once you can answer all those questions, you’ll have a better idea of what topics to cover, when to post, where to promote and more. Check out a sample buyer persona and review the Content Writers’ Complete 2018 Guide to Buyer Personas for more information.
You’ll also want to identify your content goals. You can’t steer your blog strategy without having a clear destination in mind. Be sure to write down your goals and map out routes on how to get there.
And finally, plan out how you’re going to track your blog’s success with important KPIs (key performance indicators). You’ll want to start doing this as soon as possible. Some things you might want to monitor are how many clicks each post gets, how many conversions you get from each post and which techniques work best on social media.
There’s a lot more that goes into creating and implementing a good blog strategy, but these can help you get a solid foundation.
Meet All Your 2018 Goals by Buying Blog Content
Remember, it’s never too late for business blogs to start meeting their goals. You can get back on track when you buy articles from an experienced copywriting agency. They’ll take care of the content so that you can focus on improving your overall blog strategy year after year.
