Do you want to transform your blog into a lead generation and sales machine? These five tips will assist you in setting the blogging world on fire.
More businesses are realizing that blogging can help them get found online, convert visitors to leads, nurture those leads to sales, and delight customers.
However, simply having a blog is insufficient. That is analogous to an unlit fuse.
While there is an increasing number of companies with blogs, many of them are about their company. Articles could be about new hires, awards, company picnics, contract wins, and so on. While that type of information is appropriate for a website, it is unlikely to generate many leads. In fact, it won’t even get much traffic.
A business blog must have outstanding content that prospective customers will enjoy and share on social media in order to generate leads. And this type of content is critical for generating inbound links to your site, which can significantly boost your search engine rankings.
“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.” ~Wendy Piersall
Here are the five “must-haves” for igniting your company blog and generating more traffic, leads, and customers:
1. A Buyer Persona Concentration
Buyer personas are fictitious representations of your ideal customer. “Buyer personas are examples of real buyers who influence or make decisions about the products, services, or solutions you market,” says Adele Revella of Buyer Persona Institute.
Your blog gives you the opportunity to educate your buyers at the start of their journey. The more you can write about topics that are interesting or useful to your buyer persona, the more successful your blog will be.
Blog about their common questions and challenges, and you’ll be well on your way to having an effective lead generation blog that your buyer personas will return to on a regular basis.
2. A single topic per post
Focusing on one topic per blog post allows you to address your buyer persona’s problem in a clear and concise manner. One topic per post also aids in search engine optimization (SEO) by allowing search engines to better understand what the post is about, particularly in terms of keywords.
While you should always write for searchers first and search engines second, there are a few things to keep in mind to keep both happy:
- Include the keywords from your blog post topic in the title of your post.
- Try to limit the length of your blog post titles to 55 characters or less. It’s fine if you go over, but try to put the keywords in the first 55 characters.
- Meta descriptions should be included. This is the information that appears beneath the link of a search result. While search engines largely ignore these, the searcher reads them before deciding whether or not to click on the results. Keep meta descriptions to a maximum of 140 characters.
- Include file names and Alt tags for images. Because search engines cannot read images, you must describe the image to them.
- Include links as well as anchor text. If linking to other parts of your website would improve the reader’s experience, do so. The anchor text you include in the link tells search engines about the content of the linked information.
- Concentrate on mobile. Mobile devices now account for roughly half of all Internet searches. Because search engines want their users to have a positive search experience, they prioritize mobile-optimized sites.
3. Reliability and Frequency
People looking for the answers you’re providing (as well as search engines) value consistency and frequency. As the attached chart from HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing report shows, blogging on a regular and consistent basis pays big dividends.
4. Imagery and Formatting
This is yet another reason why you should tailor your blogging to the searcher rather than the search engine. The use of proper formatting and imagery makes your blog more visually appealing to the reader.
If your blog isn’t reader-friendly and inviting, you won’t be able to capture and hold the attention of your readers. And you’re unlikely to get them back.
In terms of blog length, ensure that the post is as long as it needs to be and that it answers any questions your visitors may have.
Other formatting requirements include:
- Subheadings, numbers, and bulleted lists are all examples of bolded text (like this one)
- Accept whitespace.
- Make use of high-quality images.
5. Opportunities for Lead Conversion
You want to generate leads, don’t you? So make the most of every lead generation opportunity that comes your way. Consider the blog post to be the first step in the buyer’s journey of researching their issue. Then, give the reader the option to proceed to the next logical step.
For example, because this post is about improving your blogging lead generation opportunities, a call-to-action for an eBook about lead generation is included both here and at the CTA at the end of the post.
If a social media CTA was included at the end of this post, it would not be the best lead conversion opportunity.
Because your blog has a lot of prime real estate, include CTA buttons in the sidebar and at the end of each post, as well as in-text links. Simply ensure that the offers are as closely related to the topic as possible to increase relevancy and conversions.