For any business to thrive in this digital era, a strong online presence is a must-have. Paid advertising on social media might produce immediate results but content marketing rules for long-term success. This all begins in your home base called your corporate blog.

Your website serves as the basis for all other marketing channels. It provides content for your newsletters and social networks and works as a source for other sites to link to. The most successful companies think like publishers when producing and managing their content—so do the same!

Benefits of having a company blog

Some enterprises think blogging is just another expense but it isn’t the case. It’s one of the best investments you may make to bring in customers.

• Companies with blogs get 55% more visitors and 97% more inbound links
• More than 409 million people look at over 20 billion blogs every month
• 46% of consumers take recommendations from bloggers when shopping
• Corporate blogs produce 67% more leads per month than other mediums
• 22% of marketers report strong results when using blogs

As a business, you must consider how to connect with your target audiences better. You might not have the budget of a large corporation but there are other means to build rapport with consumers. One of the best ways to generate quality leads for your company is blogging.

Tips for starting your company’s own blog

Blogging is actually a lot of work. You want to be sure your company blog is good so readers want to buy from you or work with you. Also, you want it to generate a steady stream of customers and leads.

By following these guidelines, it’s possible to make readers fall in love with your company through your blog.

Choose topics or niches

Think about the kind of content you want visitors to read about most often or exclusively. Start by listing down the things that you want to talk about. Check out these suggestions for easy topics you may use:

• A small case study about a successful project you finished recently
• The things that your organisation does best or better than others
• Something that went wrong but was resolved satisfactorily
• One aspect of your services to serve as a building block for a series
• Employees who have made big contributions to your success
• The ways your enterprise has made a difference in the community
• The history of the organisation, especially the funny stories

Plot out an editorial or content calendar for when you want the articles to be published so it’s more convenient on whoever is managing the blog. Discuss with the rest of the marketing team what topics to focus on in each month or quarter so the whole site is cohesive.

Pick a blogging platform

If you don’t already have a corporate website, you’ll have to build your site from scratch in order to have a place to put your blog posts. Look at the platforms currently available and determine the type of management software you want to use for this purpose.

• Bluehost and WordPress – for an easier way to customise and scale your blog
• LinkedIn – for networking with influencers and thought leaders in your industry
• Medium – for writing to audiences who are looking for articles on specific topics
• Squarespace – for showcasing portfolios in design, art, and photography
• Wix – for when you want something easy to navigate and use when blogging

Of course, it’s always better to have your company blog on your corporate website but it never hurts to be a guest writer too. Cooperate with the web development team to ensure that your content will sit well on the page according to the existing design.

Optimise for search engines

Since you’ve narrowed in on topics, focus your attention on keyword research next so you’ll get optimal results. There’s no point to an exceptional article when nobody is able to see it. To get more traffic, make sure that people will find your site when searching online.

Optimise each article for one or two keywords. For example, this post is optimised for company blog. Remember to use related keywords like ‘blog marketing’ or ‘starting your company’s own blog’ so search engines will better determine what the content is all about.

Always use headlines, internal linking, and meta descriptions. We won’t delve too much into on-page SEO here, but we do recommend that you work with specialists in researching the best keywords to use and how to use them.

Prepare to promote

Now that you know how to get your content discovered by search engines, the next step is to prepare to promote your blog. You won’t be able to proceed until the article is ready but there are things you may get ready beforehand. These include your social sharing buttons on every post.

Test your blog on different devices i.e. mobile, tablet, desktop and browsers e.g. Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox to see if pages open correctly or not. There’s a way to preview your post before publishing on WordPress so use that functionality.

Announce on your social media profiles that you now have a blog where people may find useful information related to your organisation. Learn the proper way of linking back to your posts without appearing too pushy or aggressive with your sales.

Build an emailing list

It’s hard to get people to check your posts when you’re not contacting them about your blog. Visitors might appear by accident but they may have a hard time returning. Build a connection with your existing and prospective customers and coax them to read more through email.

When you appear in their inbox once a week, they will get to know you and trust you. Doing so earns you a chance to sell your products and/or services to them. As for how you may boost your mailing list:

• Offer a bonus when they sign up, be it a free course, a video, or an ebook
• Talk about the benefits of signing up, including the exclusive content they might receive
• Put your sign-up form somewhere strategic, such as in the side bar or even as a pop up

Get an expert blogger

As you may have gathered from above, there are multiple steps to starting your own company blog. You have to think about suitable topics often so you won’t run out of content to post. Not to mention that you have to consider the keywords for SEO.

When you’re still a small or medium enterprise, it might be tempting to do all of the writing yourself. We’re here to convince you to leave such tasks to an expert so you may focus on core business activities. Rather than an added cost, it’s a necessary investment for your brand.

If you’re looking for an easier way to establish your blog, we at Remote Workmate are here to help. We’ll connect you with virtual assistants who specialise in blogging so you won’t have to bother with it yourself. A professional knows what kind of content works and even give you suggestions.