One of the many challenges of launching a startup today is standing out in a highly saturated business landscape. With companies emerging left and right, new ventures compete by boosting their online presence through various digital marketing practices.
Blogging, which many consider a relic from the early days of the internet, remains a valuable technique businesses, especially startups, use to elevate their performance online. This isn't surprising considering the continuous relevance of SEO (search engine optimization) and content marketing.
Read below to learn more about blogging and how it can help elevate your startup in its initial stages. Discover the benefits of blogging today and some of the best practices to consider.
How Blogging Benefits Startups
Blogging presents numerous opportunities for brands to elevate themselves in the market. Whether you plan on writing it yourself or hiring a professional to do it for you, here's how your startup can benefit from blogging.
Produce quality website traffic
Blogging helps businesses drive quality organic traffic to their website, regardless of their industries. Constantly producing valuable information for online users is an excellent way to encourage them to visit your site further, viewing you as a credible source of information.
When that happens, you invite them to explore your brand deeper and potentially convert them into customers or partners.
It may take time for startups to achieve such an effect, especially in the initial stages. However, building a library of quality content over time will increase your chances of earning relevant traffic to your site.
Gain high rankings in search engines
Online users heavily rely on search engines to gather the information they seek. An excellent ranking or placement on platforms like Google and Bing increases a site's chances of reaching and converting their target audience.
Publishing quality content through blogging is vital to a successful SEO campaign. Incorporating ranking elements like backlinks and keywords is essential to help you achieve an excellent placement or ranking in the SERPs (search engine results pages) and connect with more people online.
Boost your image at a low cost
One of the many reasons blogging remains an effective digital marketing channel is that brands can use it with little to no starting cost. If you use blogging for your brand, you only have to worry about investing in expert help or subscribing to writing and editing platforms. You won't have to pay for ad placements and recurring targeting fees.
Moreover, blogging offers long-term value to brands and online users more than other forms of paid advertising. They can enrich a person's search by providing valuable information and supporting resources. The best part is that these materials can stay accessible for an extensive period on the brand's site. This long-term value comes without a fixed cost, which is highly beneficial for new businesses.
Establish your brand authority
One of the best ways for your brand to stand out from a highly saturated and competitive digital landscape is to position it as a leader or authority in your industry. Blogging offers an excellent opportunity to do that.
You can use blogging to showcase your industry knowledge and expertise by providing valuable information to your target audience. If you produce quality content consistently, you increase your chances of being a credible source of information online.
The best thing about blogging is that it benefits businesses in different fields. What that means is that it won't matter whether you're writing for retail, finance, or any other industry. If you produce quality and relevant content, you could position your brand's authority, regardless of whether you're talking about custom t-shirts or medical loan refinancing.
Improve your brand loyalty
Blogging is an excellent channel that can help you strengthen your brand loyalty. Through this practice, you can communicate directly with your target audience. Doing so enhances more site visits, engagement, and, ultimately, conversion.
Additionally, blogs provide an opportunity for you to display how well you understand your target audience. Addressing common challenges and providing solutions creates a sense of relatability that engages your visitors more.
Best Blogging Tips for Startup
It’s a good idea to consider the following best practices when publishing blogs to your brand's website. Whether you're writing content yourself or hiring someone else, implementing these techniques is necessary.
Always ensure consistency
Consistency in blogging refers to frequency and branding. Frequency is how often you produce your articles, which, many agree, is around two to four per week. To make that happen, you must develop a content plan beforehand so your team can create them early. That way, you have a steady flow of articles per week.
The good news is that you can use many blog types to create a diverse and insightful library. These include listicles, how-tos, case studies, and news stories. Try repurposing previous articles by adding new details relevant today. Doing this will ensure you will have enough blogs to write about.
Meanwhile, it’s a great practice to create blogs consistent with your brand's tone and identity. Whatever voice you adopt: witty, friendly, or profound, use it in all your content. Having uniformity in your blogs is an excellent way to help readers have a seamless experience as they transition from one page to another. When that happens, you increase visitor retention and engagement.
Produce original and quality content
If you want your brand to stand out as an industry leader and a credible source of information, produce original content relevant to your target audience's needs. When we say original, we mean encompassing various factors you prioritize.
For one, avoid publishing plagiarized content or direct copies of materials from other sources. Search engines like Google will penalize you by lowering your site's ranking in the search results if you do so.
Aside from that, originality means offering fresh insights into your industry. You can offer statistics or expound on studies relevant to your field. That way, you add value to your target audience's search. You can also quote or link to trusted sources to boost your content's originality.
Make your blogs readable
Online users hate to go through blocks of text when getting the information they seek. Every time they encounter them on a website, they tend to opt out and head elsewhere for relevant information.
There are many ways to make your blogs easy to digest. The key is to create them with a mixture of line breaks, small blocks of paragraphs, and images scattered throughout the content. These practices help increase readability and engagement for your readers. They also contribute to the site's overall user experience.
Visual elements also help make blogs more engaging to online users. For example, adding pictures between large blocks of text makes it digestible and more inviting to readers. These images help brands emphasize critical points in their blogs, serving as informative visual ads. This is an excellent way to elevate your credibility further.
Keep up with the latest in SEO
As discussed above, blogging offers numerous opportunities to elevate your SEO ranking. That being said, it's vital that you keep up with the latest SEO practices to ensure that your blogs are optimized accordingly.
SEO remains vital today because it constantly changes according to the latest trends or shifts in digital marketing. That means you might find some of today's best techniques less effective in a few years.
For example, keyword stuffing used to be the most leveraged SEO tactic by websites in the model's early stages. However, search engines began penalizing keyword stuffing because it allowed websites to manipulate their rankings and compromise their content quality. Instead, they want websites to incorporate keywords to maintain their readability seamlessly.
Don't forget your calls-to-action (CTAs)
CTAs help elevate engagement by providing visitors with the next steps in their journey within a website, guiding them through other relevant pages outside the blogs they're reading. If done correctly, CTAs provide an excellent way to keep online users on the site longer, reducing bounce rates and increasing your brand's likelihood of conversion.
These elements come in various forms. In blogs, it's typically a written invitation that encourages readers to click on a particular link. Often, it's found in areas where engagement is the highest, typically after the first two paragraphs, in the middle, and at the end of the article.
Make More Effective Blogs
Effective blogging helps startups boost their online presence even in their initial stages. That's why it’s a good idea to prioritize making them upon launching your venture online. Ensure your blogs are original, easy to read, engaging, and contain all the best and latest ranking elements for SEO.