Regular blogging is a low cost marketing strategy that not only generates more warm online leads, but also improves your organic search engine rankings, bringing potential customers to your site who are already looking for your specific product or service.

At Sterling content, our blog duration services are custom tailored to your business, your brand messaging, and your target audience. We have worked with small and medium sized businesses, as well as enterprise clients, and we take pride in the efficient and precise blog writing and blog management services that we offer.

For us, we feel that blogging is the backbone of any companies marketing plan. After all, a weekly blog not only keeps your existing clients updated on the direction of your business, but within SEO-savvy editorial calendar in place, it can also bring in new business based on trending online terms and search queries. On top of that, an expert be written blog can be a gold mine for your other advertising channels, such as social media and sales.

Below, we’re laying out the seven key elements that make for an incredible blog campaign. Does this recipe work? Don’t ask us; ask the dozens of satisfied clients who we’d help over the years.

Here are the seven key elements to a lead-generating, SEO-savvy blog:

1. Define your audience

You would probably never run a newspaper ad or a TV commercial without first knowing the audience you’re aiming for. That’s why you should never create a blog post without knowing the type of reader whose attention you are trying to capture.

The right blog attracts readers who are already your target customers, people already be searching for services like yours.

A blog curation campaign can help you create a reader profile based on what you already know about your ideal customer, and strengthen that profile with Google-specific research. Then, with the right keyword-infused content (see below), Google will automatically send warm leads your way.

A reader profile can be based on the following:

  • User demographics
  • Key needs or interests
  • Common questions customers in your industry are posing
  • Specific queries users are already entering into Google

Generating a reader profile will help your blog management company generate topics that potential customers actually care about, and will answer the questions they’re already asking.

2. Create an editorial calendar

Customers, blog readers and search engines all like predictability. If you start writing, but then don’t post for several weeks, readers are less likely to come back and see what else you’ve written. A website that publishes infrequently won’t rank as high in search engines, making it less likely that customers will find you through online search.

It’s hard to publish regularly if you are struggling to think of things to write about or forgetting that your blog exists. To prevent this, create an editorial calendar that lays out a plan for what you will write and when it will be published. 

The frequency of your posts doesn’t matter as much as the quality and consistency. One well-written, relevant blog post every two weeks will market your business better than daily poor-quality posts every day or a blog that hasn’t been updated in months.

3. Write with a clear & insightful voice

Clarity: The writing should be clear, concise, and filler-free. The article should be easy to read and understand.

Insightful: Good blogs provide insights into topics that are important in your industry, with real lessons you can apply.

Authoritative: Writers have firsthand experience in their field of expertise, but make sure not to be overly self-promotional.

You can also increase the effectiveness of your message with supplemental Information. Data-backed information helps readers digest your message and reputable data will support your advice on any topic related to B2B marketing. Images, screenshots, videos, and other visual examples reinforce the messaging as well, so be sure to embed your articles with helpful secondary media.

4. Keywords are the lifeblood of any blog campaign

If you want customers to find your website when they search online, your blog posts must include related phrases that customers might type into a search engine.

Even if you don’t have a defined audience, an expert blog curation company such as Sterling Content can help you create an audience profile through careful keyword research. The right software-enhanced keyword research can help a blog campaign by targeting the exact phrases customers enter in to Google every day, essentially creating a road map for them to follow – directly to your product or service page.

By strategically inserting these phrases into your content in a natural, intelligent way, Google will automatically privilege your content to appear on the search engine results page whenever users enter those phrases.

Before you write each post, research long-tail keyword phrases and include them in your writing.

For example, if your company provides real estate listings in dense urban areas, your customers are more likely to search for “condo” than “family home.” The right blog content company will choose the right keywords you’re your customer profile, and will aim to populate your posts with one main keyword and two or three secondary keywords that are relevant to the topic.

5. Optimize your posts for search

To optimize your blog posts for online search (also known as search engine optimization, or SEO), add signals that tell search engines what your post is about. When search engines read these signals, they can direct relevant traffic to your website.

Adding keywords in the right places optimizes your blog post for search. The main keyword that you select should be found in the post’s title, at least one heading, and once or twice in the body of the blog posts. Secondary keywords should appear in headings and the body of the post.

Incorporate these keywords as naturally as possible. Do not add keywords randomly or in sentences where they don’t fit organically; this is known as “keyword stuffing” and signals to search engines that your site is not trustworthy.

The written post isn’t the only place where you should use keywords. They should also appear in the following places:

  • The URL of your post
  • Your blog post title
  • Image names
  • Image descriptions
  • The meta description of your post’s content

At Sterling Content, we first conduct the SEO research that generates optimized keywords and helps us learn the most common questions users are asking on Google related to your industry. Only after we’ve gathered this key info do we then build informative articles that actually answer those questions. Not only does this drive more users to site, but it also demonstrates your expertise in your field. And that’s a win-win.

6. Offer industry advice

Whatever the size of your business, regular blog content is an effective way to show expertise in your industry, and build trust with your contemporaries as well as your customers. A blog can serve as an attractive portfolio showing off what your business can do. The best blog curation services won’t just write articles for you, they will be brand ambassadors.

Finally, a fresh bold blog shows a personal side to your business that makes users more likely to engage with, and spend money on, your brand. Warm, bespoke content makes your blog feel less like a repository of random information, and more like a direct mode of communication between you, your industry, your loyal customers, and your prospective new clients.

These things simply cannot be achieved through other outbound marketing techniques.

A regular blog informs consumers about corporate standards, keeps them up-to-date with regards to your mission and vision, and also helps you stand out from your competitors because the content a blog management company provides is always topical and up-to-date.

This makes it much more relevant both for human users and for Google’s ranking algorithm — which, of course, make up the twin pillars of online marketing.

Ask any marketing expert in the field, and they’ll tell you that content is the absolute bedrock of communication with clients and customers. If customers don’t know who you are, they’ll never trust you enough to work with you.

Blog management services provided by Sterling Content are custom tailored to you, the client. We don’t just scan your website and post articles about your products or services. We actually want to talk to you or your marketing department to learn exactly why you are so good at what you do. We then turn that into beneficial content establishing you as a thought leader in your industry.