Everyone has become so familiar with reading blogs online nowadays, that most people expect to find a blog on a business or personal website. If you are selling something on your website, most website will expect to read some type of commentary in the form of a blog. They’ll want to read about why product A is superior to product B, and want to read this comparison before they consider making a purchase. This is best done via a blog, because you can communicate with your customers in a more informal and natural style.
But sometimes you can find yourself staring blankly at your keyboard, wondering what the next post on your blog should be about. Perhaps you may experience some of these painful procrastination points when thinking about writing your next blog post. (You’re not alone.)
Website Content Publishing Pangs
- Topic ideas – sitting down in front of your computer without formulating a writing plan for your next blog post is pointless. You need to create some type of plan. It’s important you prepare what you are going to write by clarifying in your mind; why you are writing it, and who you are writing it for. It may help you organize your thoughts and structure your writing.
- Writers block – if you are just starting out, you might think it is easy to go back and use the same wording from old fliers or newspaper ads that you have used to market your business in the past. Except, this doesn’t produce good content for your blog, the content will seem dis-jointed and unorganized to your readers when you try to combine it together to form a blog post. Start by writing fresh, original content that you think your customers are most interested in reading/learning about.
- Time consuming – writing and researching content for your next blog post does take time. It’s a large time commitment to think, write, edit, choose an image, and publish informative content for your blog; especially when this isn’t even the core aspect of your business – but remember it’s both necessary and important.
- Unreasonable expectations – often writing content for your blog can take a lot longer than you might think. It may take several days or even a few weeks to mull through some ideas before deciding to commit to writing and publishing content. Give yourself some time to prepare thoroughly. You do not want to get frustrated with the lack of an idea and spiral down towards procrastination because you have set unreasonable expectations on yourself.
- Technical and complex concepts – if you have been working in your business/industry a long time, you may forget what it’s like to understand it from a first timer’s experience. Without having to ‘dumb it down’ too much, try to write your blog post in everyday language that makes sense for the ordinary Joe to understand.
- Assigning the wrong writer – your business may be big enough to assign others to write blog posts for you. This can be a double-edged sword. You may find yourself with more time to focus on other areas of your business, but the person you have assigned to write new blog posts may not know enough (or even have the ability to write) about the various aspects of your business about your business’s products or services.
How do you write website content on your blog so that it will be read?
You may be thinking that just because you don’t see anyone sharing or re-tweeting the latest post on your blog no-one is interested/reading it. Here are a few tips to virtually guarantee that what you have written will receive some response.
- Begin with a plan – ask yourself, what do your website visitors need to know to get an overall impression of who you are, what you do, and who your typical customers are. Think about the questions your customers ask you when they contact your business for the first time. This is all rich information that you can use as individual blog posts.
- Have an ideas notebook – sometimes when you’re away from your computer an idea might pop into your head for a future blog post – capture that idea by writing it down in a notebook.
- Set time aside – you may not have the time to finish your blog post in one sitting, but commit to at least writing your first draft or deciding on the right images.
- Explain complicated ideas with examples – complex and technical concepts are often best explained by writing examples which your website visitors can relate to.
- Write using your customers’ language – although it seems natural to you to write your blog post using the language and jargon of your industry, it is not necessarily understandable to your customer. Think about the words and terms your customers use when they are describing what you do and what service you provide – these are the phrases they will be typing into search engines to find your business/website.
- Find the right web writer – if your business has a team of people, and you think any one of them could write website content for your business blog – think again. They may be exceptional in the area you have hired them, but writing for a website is an entirely different skill set. Ask them to write a potential blog post on a subject that is relevant to your business. Look carefully at what they have written and ask yourself; if your customers read through that post – would they be more informed? Share the post on their social network? Or buy more of your product or services as a direct result of reading that post? If there are no natural writers in your business, hire someone to act as a content writer, based on a subject outline you have supplied.
Why are blogs are so essential for website content?
Many website visitors arriving at your site don’t have the time or inclination to read through your entire site looking for the information they were searching for. Make it easy for them to find the right information. Tell them what you do, who you are, and how you can help. There is an unlimited variety of content options your blog could include. Your blog could include interviews, commentaries, event descriptions, or other material such as graphics, charts or videos. Blogs can be, and often are, a multi-media rich experience. Think about how your blog content best answers the questions your customers have.
Blogs Are Written For People – well-written blogs exude a sense of familiarity and confidence. It’s this closeness that allows successful blog writers to capture a following. And if you can do this, you will capture Google.
Blogs Are Liked By Search Engines – search engines like blogs, because they create fresh content that is relevant to both the website and the reader. This is most demonstrated with the speed in which Google finds and publishes fresh blog content. Google bots can index and list a new blog post in as little as 30 minutes.
Blogs Provide Good Marketing Material – blogs help market and promote a business’s product or service. They support the core website through helping to reinforce your branding and conveying the key marketing messages. Blogs can also be picked up by other bloggers, or the media, generating their own momentum.
Publishing new content for your blog or updating your website content does not need to be as onerous and challenging as you previously thought. Using these content strategy tips to breakthrough your publishing pangs will help re-motivate you and get back into writing.
