Why you need to blog.
On almost every business website you visit, you'll see a blog. Some businesses like to share their company news in their blog whilst others use it to help potential customers with common problems. One of the biggest benefits of using a blog means you have an effective way of Attracting traffic to your website. What's great about this traffic is that most of the people will be your ideal customer - so here are other reasons why you need to blog.
- Drives traffic.
- Drives relevant traffic.
- Converts visitors into leads.
- Blogs educate your readers and help them solve problems.
- Shows you’re an authority in your industry.
- Provides long-term opportunities.
For more in-depth explanations on all of the points mentioned above, head over to the blog we’ve published.
How often should I blog for boosting business?
Opinion is divided as to whether blogging everyday is a good thing or not - a scan of the top Google results on the topic shows this - so we decided to try it out for a month and see what effect it had on our numbers. It's a popular experiment that has been conducted by lots of big companies and sites, but isn't necessarily something every agency can do. Sometimes, your own work becomes secondary when you are working to produce content that brings results for your clients.
We blogged everyday for one month, and here’s what we found:
-
Views increased by over 51 percent compared to the three-month average.
-
Website views increased by over 36 percent.
-
Twice as many contacts were gained compared to the previous month.
-
22 more posts resulted in almost 200 percent more views.
The basic gist of this section is to show that the more you blog, the better. Although, you need to make sure the topics are relevant to your industry and audience. For a more detailed breakdown of this experiment, take some time out to read the blog.
Tone of Voice
Tone of voice is often considered as one of the highest priorities when starting marketing a new business. The tone of your business can help customers engage with you and is very beneficial for businesses using inbound marketing. When producing content, you need to make sure you’re always in line with the tone that has been set and not going off track with the words and tone you use.
A tone of voice is how your business communicates with potential customers. A company who uses colloquial language and informal phrases in their marketing will come across very differently to a company using serious terminology and hard facts. Before you can establish the correct tone you need to research your audience. What content do they engage with? What types of marketing do they prefer? When creating your company’s voice, make sure you take these factors into account.
- Clarity.
- Reassurance.
- Efficiency.
- Engagement.
- Outvoice your competitors.
To read more about tone of voice and for more in-depth explanations, check out this blog. If you need a starting point and some assistance when it comes to defining your company’s tone of voice, then we have you covered. This blog outlines the five-step process to defining your brand’s tone of voice.
Tips, tricks and tools you’ll need to create inbound content.
How to plan blog titles.
While on-boarding new clients, many have wanted to produce blogs. A recurring question has been, "What should we write about and how do we plan blog titles?" With that in mind, we had our topic to talk about at the August Manchester HUG event, which we host. Paul, Content Manager at Digital 22, delivered a talk which features plenty of useful tips on how you can create some killer blog titles in just five easy steps. By clicking here, you can read what Paul had to say as well as watching a video of his presentation.
How to make a blog go viral.
This is obviously not something that can happen with every single blog, but it can certainly happen when you least expect it. Back in 2016, Rikki, our Director, wrote a blog titled ‘Nobody gives a s#*t how many cups of coffee your agency drinks!’ It took off and nearly reached 10,000 views. By reading this blog, it’ll give you an explanation of why we think it managed to do really well, and some steps you can take to hopefully achieve the same.
How often you should update your blog for inbound marketing success.
Your blog is the focal point of your marketing campaigns, or at least it should be. Attracting more traffic, building your brand reputation, securing conversions - they’re all achievable if you have a good blog strategy and a routine in place. If you’re a ‘one-and-done’ type of marketer and you revisit your blog whenever you feel like it, you’re not exactly going to get the results you want to see. We feel three blogs per week is the optimal amount - and this blog outlines why we’ve come to that conclusion.
A handy inbound blog checklist that’s yours to keep.
If you’re new to inbound content but it’s definitely something you want to get involved in, then this post is a good starting point for you. By now, you know how beneficial blogging is, but not everyone knows how to do it effectively. By clicking on the link above, you can read and keep the blog checklist with you at all times so you’re always creating and optimising the best blogs possible in just 10 easy steps.
How you can create better stories in your content.
Journalists and content marketing teams can often face similar issues when it’s time to produce content. In the world of Inbound Marketing, it’s about solving the pain points of your Buyer Personas through that content. Still, there are certain processes used in the journalistic world that can be easily translated to your content team that allows your business to tell better stories in your content.
At INBOUND 18, one of the talks we attended was Storyfuel Founder Melanie Deziel’s talk on how content teams can think like journalists to create better brand stories. To find out the five elements she highlighted which you can use right away, check out this blog.
How you can prove content marketing ROI.
We all need to know how the pounds and effort we're throwing into our marketing campaigns are affecting our bottom line. Sadly, proving ROI is tricky business, especially when you're looking at it from a content perspective as it's not easy to track. That's opposed to PPC ROI which is fully trackable. In this blog, you’ll be able to see some brilliant tips on how you can prove content marketing ROI to your boss and the tools you need to actually do it.
As important as human proofreaders are when writing content, make sure you’re using useful tools to make sure your content is spot on. Grammarly is a free writing app to make your messaging clear and mistake free. The Hemingway App is another free useful tool to take advantage of as it highlights complex sentences and common errors. It also gives advice on where you can shorten and split your sentence so it makes for easier reading.
Getting started with podcasts.
Although it’s not written content, podcasts are still a part of your inbound content marketing strategy and they’re both great fun and easy to get involved in. The popularity of podcasts has boomed very quickly in a short space of time. So, why aren’t more inbound marketers taking advantage and creating podcasts themselves?
If you fall into this group, it may the fear of being recorded that’s putting you off. Don’t let it! Podcasts are a great way of delivering content given how popular they are. Paul spoke at a Manchester HUG event, a good while ago, on how to get started with podcasts. So, what exactly is a podcast? Well, it’s defined as - An episodic series of digital audio or video files which a user can download and listen to. In simple terms: on-demand radio.
- There are already 22.3 million weekly digital audio listeners in the UK.
- Podcasts have had a 40 percent growth since 2013.
- The number of weekly listeners is set to rise to 30 million by 2020.
Podcasts are part of a wider on-demand culture. People are in charge of what they watch or listen to. Take Spotify for instance, more and more people are turning off their radios and listening to Spotify as they are then in control of what they listen to.
Tools and tips.
Microphone: You don’t need to be a video expert to film a podcast, all you really need is your smartphone and a good mic. Audio is essential so if you are going to spend any money on equipment we recommend a good mic. We use the Blue Yeti. It's always worth filming your podcast too, by the way. Mark Byrne, our Director, has all the information you need of how to create an amazing video on a budget here.
Planning and Setting Up: We advice not to use a script as it can sound unauthentic. Instead, note down the topics you’ll cover, jot down notes on what you’ll say in the introduction, the questions you want to cover and the outro.
Sound Quality: An echo can break a podcast and deter listeners or viewers from turning in again. We suggest putting some plants into the room, invest in acoustic soundproofing and bring in anything that will absorb some of the noise.
Post-Edit: After you’ve finished your recording session, make sure you edit and share your podcast to it looks more natural and sounds better. Listeners will be more engaged with a natural conversion and we also recommend keeping the length to around 30 minutes.
For more tips and tricks when it comes to podcasting, as well as what we’ve found since we started the Inbound After Hours podcast, click here to read more in this blog.
Just like our blogging experiment, we also tried an experiment for our podcast. We actually stopped podcasting for almost six months and in this blog, you can see what exactly changed during that time. The data includes our blog views, email open rates and much more.
Where to Upload Your Podcasts: Your podcasts obviously need a home so people can find them. While the goal might be for giants like Spotify to pick up your audio podcasts in the long run, there are plenty of hosts we’ve found are great for uploading your audio and video podcasts.
Make sure you research each option. While some are free, others feature paid options which might suit your needs more because of storage space.