Compared to the past and the “primordial” era of the web, in which blogs were nothing more than digital diaries of individuals , this important storytelling tool has over time transformed into one of the most effective means to include in the strategies of Business Digital Marketing .
To date, the internet is literally populated with corporate blogs , regardless of the professional sector of reference and even the size of the organization.
In fact, these two factors have an almost tangential influence on the success of a blog , and it is no coincidence that there are SMEs with very popular blogs capable of competing with the giants of the market.
But how do they do it? In summary, creating the right mix of talent, passion and strategy .
Blogs in 2021: some interesting statistics
As marketing specialists, we always like statistics a lot and we believe they are also very useful in providing an interesting background on any subject.
Doing some research on blogs , we discover that, currently, there are about 600 million of them on the net – and that this is an underestimate. In addition, millions of blog posts are published every day around the world , and the bright side is that, according to Statista, around 70% -80% of digital users not only read them regularly, but even spend more time on blogs than on e -mail : a more than comforting fact for anyone who decides to invest in this tool!
Equally noteworthy is the fact that most internet users consider blogs as a reliable tool in which to find information, that is, worthy of their trust . Not surprisingly, 94% of blog readers share their content on the network (for example on social networks) because they believe that they will be useful to other users .
From a more technical point of view, we know that WordPress is by far the most used platform for blogging , so much so that it is chosen by 64.8% of users (WP also powers 40% of the world’s sites on its own !).
Hubspot also confirms thatmarketersare very aware of the importance of including blogging in their digital strategies, so much so that53% ofthem rank themamong their essential priorities.
We agree with this point of view not only in terms of the quality of the contents that these tools can guarantee, but also because they positively influence the SEO of the website : Client Tech reiterates in this sense that the sites that host a blog tend to have 434% more pages organically indexed on search engines
Open a blog in 2021: how to do it best
Now that we have given you an overview of numbers to frame the “blog tool” in the vision of users and marketers , let’s see together not only how to open a blog but also why to do it .
Among the reasons that should push you to exploit this channel, in addition to those deductible in the statistics, also include:
- The ability to build and improve your online presence
- The dissemination of skills and know-how to your target audience in your specific operating sector, so as to increase the perception of the value of your business
- The inclusion of the blog in a multichannel or omnichannel marketing strategy
- Improving the SEO of your website
- The expansion of your audience
- The opportunity to use the blog to apply advanced digital marketing tools, such as Inbound Marketing
All these reasons, both individually and in their entirety , are more than noteworthy and only confirm the real usefulness of this tool in a very broad and transversal communication context.
But how to proceed?
Surely, you will find interesting our insights on how to create a blog-oriented editorial plan or how to use your corporate blog to generate quality leads to convert into customers.
As for the rules to start with to create a successful blog , here are our tips.
Define your niche
We always advise against blogs that are too general for companies. In fact, it is not a private diary, but a public digital tool that customers, suppliers, partners and leads can use at any time: this is why it should always be themed .
But be careful : defining the niche of a corporate blog does not mean talking only about your own products or services, but rather establishing a wide-ranging strategy that clearly includes the themes and topics that can be linked to your company and interests of those who read you.
For example: if your company produces windows , it will make sense to talk about wood or other materials, but also about the importance of thermal and acoustic insulation , energy efficiency of indoor environments, the eco- sustainable aspect of the materials used. in your industry and so on.
A truly interesting blog is never exclusively written to convert the user into a customer, but first and foremost to provide useful, interesting and thematic information .
Focus on quality even before quantity
It is clear that publishing a blog post a year makes little sense, but it is equally true that it is always better to favor quality over quantity .
Choose carefully what you want to communicate and do it best , possibly with the help of professional Content Managers and Copywriters , who will know how to make your content both captivating to read and oriented towards the best positioning on search engines ( SEO ).
Remember that creating content for a corporate blog is neither simple nor quick! Here again our valuable statistics come in handy: in 2020 , bloggers took an average of 3.3 hours to make a single digital content.
And again: a professional content creator will tell you that only in a minority of cases (about 20%) it takes about two hours to write a good blog post.
These numbers serve to understand a fundamental paradigm : the more time and effort poured into a content, the better its potential redemption will be. Again, therefore, quality outweighs quantity, especially when it comes to writing cornerstone articles (ie the content considered essential to your blog: they are also called Pillar Content ).
Leverage your blog in synergy with company social channels and in your marketing strategy
What’s the point of writing a blog post if no one reads it ? Unless your website is already well positioned on the engines or subscribed by a quantity of users such that each new content published will generate automatic traffic , the best thing to do to get success with a blog is to make it think in synergy with your channels. social.
Do not limit yourself to automatic sharing, but structure a different introductory hat for each social platform, taking into account the differences between the various targets and the specifics of language , as well as the good rules to encourage the dissemination of content (for example the use of hashtag !).
Bottom line: When writing your blog, never lose sight of the big picture
More generally, remember that to work at its best the blog must be part of a broader digital marketing strategy , and therefore must work in synergy with other tools : not only the aforementioned SEO , but also e-mail marketing. (which will allow you to send the new content published through your newsletters), videos (by linking the insights written in the multimedia contents present for example on your YouTube channel), inbound marketing (with the creation of premium or freemium content, which significantly increase the perception of your value and broaden your audience) and so on.
All these actions, carefully calibrated and added to other virtuous processes – from the choice of the layout to the inclusion of multimedia contents in the articles; from the frequency of the editorial plan to the regularity of publications ; to finally get to the performance of the platform on which the blog is hosted – they will allow you to obtain extraordinary results from this precious communication tool.
