12 Dec Blogging for Business – How to Create Content Your Customers Crave

Is your blog content interesting enough to grow your customers?

Written by Daniela Cavalletti

4 min read

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved creating connection by writing personal messages. I’m still this (now somewhat) rare beast: a regular snail-mail card sender in the age of texting and instant messaging. Writing those personal cards always comes from the heart, and it creates lasting emotional connections and joy.

Blogging for Business – Your Opportunity to Connect

When it comes to online reading and writing, I take the same approach. I read widely – blogs for business or about any other topic you could think of – and I love to share interesting insights and stories with my family, team, clients and friends. And when I write, it’s usually sparked by a question I have or have been asked; by something I’m passionate about or want to know more of and explore.

I can’t remember when exactly I started regularly sharing content – or for that matter when ‘shareable’ became a part of our everyday language – but I do know that having a blog for business that is shared widely is something to treasure.

What Makes Blog Content Shareable? And Why Does Your Business Need It?

Today, blogging for business is necessary to get your name and brand out there, to build customer loyalty – and ultimately increase leads and sales. It also positively affects your search engine ranking, of course. Websites that blog have an average of 434% more pages indexed by Google. Every blog for business you write gives Google one more page to index, which, in turn, helps your clients find you online more quickly.

If someone shares your blog, they’re essentially saying “Hey, I like and support this business; check it out!” If you’re hoping to become an industry leader, sharing your thoughts far and wide through blogging for your business is an essential step in gathering followers.

Creating a shareable blog or better still one that goes ‘viral’ is challenging, especially with all the competing noise. You need to come up with new ideas, angles and interesting stories all the time. Ideally, you’ll read widely, be curious and deeply understand your audience. Not to mention setting aside enough time to do the writing, editing and proofreading of each piece – before strategically sending your blog posts out into the world via your website and social media profiles.

Blogging for business … does it sound tricky? It can be. But there is a lot you can do to ensure your blog posts are worthy of being shared and commented on.

How to Create Shareable Content Your Customers (And Google) Crave

#1. Know Your Audience

This is a bit like eating better and exercising more – you know you should do it (and everyone keeps telling you to) but you haven’t done much about it yet. Who are you writing for and what do they want to read about? Really drill down into who your potential customers and clients are through surveys, interviews, market research and cyberstalking. It will make it easier to write stuff that appeals directly to them and will trigger that ‘share’ response. Once you know what pushes their buttons (and how they liked to be talked to), create a blog topics list and calendar, and make it a priority to regularly post fresh content.

#2. Ignite the ‘I Identify With That Too’ Response

Good old-fashioned problem solving is what will attract the punters every time. If you can share practical tips, advice and guidance on something that worries your readers, they’ll be grateful and happy enough to want to pass on this information to others. Don’t be stingy with the advice either – give them something meaty and valuable that will make a difference to their lives. Never write to simply promote or advertise your business. Focus on entertaining, informing and educating your readers at all times. Inviting guest bloggers to contribute a piece can also help expand your audience and wider appeal.

#3. Magnetic Headlines

A cracker of a headline is all important. Put some time and effort into writing something creative, interesting and intriguing. People find it hard to ignore you if you’re blogging for business in a way that breaks down a complicated subject or process into numbered ‘steps’ ‘ways’ or ‘points’. Equally ‘How to’ and lists are irresistible. Tools such as CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer can be helpful in formulating a winning heading with power words and emotion.

#4. Visually Ho-Hum Won’t Cut It

There are no excuses to be boring anymore. It’s a visual world so adding a striking illustration, infographic or photo can make all the difference to your business blog’s shareability. Don’t be afraid to show a bit of personality and oomph here. You can find plenty of quirky images for free online or you can create something original using easy design apps like Canva. Everyone loves an infographic so if you can break your blog content down into graphics and visuals, you’ll be onto a winner.

#5. Make it Personal

People connect with people – not with titles or business entities. So ensure your blog’s author is a person, not your business name. Blogging for business needs to clearly come from a human within your company; whether it’s your CEO Jane or Bob from Sales. People won’t respond well or want to share something that is from the perspective of a business – it feels cold and impersonal. But engage them on a personal and accessible level via “from the desk of Jane” you’ll see the same blog post soar in comparison.

#6.  A Bit Bleeding Obvious But …

You need to make it easy for your business blog to be shared, so add email and social sharing buttons, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to it. For most platforms, free plugins are available that automatically add these to your latest posts. If all else fails be very direct: it generally won’t hurt to add a “Loved what you read? Please share this post!” as a closing call to action.

#7. Prod For a Comment

Try to end your business blog post by asking a fun, controversial or thought-provoking question that your readers won’t be able to resist responding to. If they comment they’re more likely to share with others. Fact.

#8. Monitor Your Blog Posts

Keep notes on which of your blog posts are popular and being shared – and analyse why. It’s not always crystal clear as there are a lot of factors ­– such as topic, images, time and place you posted, time of the year, etc. – but after 20+ posts you might start to see a trend. Then it’s worth revisiting a popular subject or expanding it into a series of blog posts. Are there any pattern emerging? Google Analytics will become your trusted friend here. Take notice of your analytics and make sure your business blog is actually hitting its mark.

#9. Share It Around, Share the Love

There is little point in blogging for business if your posts simply sit on your website. Ensure you are using all your relevant social media channels to share and refer back to your blog – multiple times. Keep that in mind when creating your business blog content: make it as evergreen as possible. Repurpose your business blogs by rewriting them then share them on forums such as LinkedIn Pulse, Medium and – for small businesses ­– information-rich, quirky Smallville.

And don’t forget to reciprocate the love your blog’s been given. If you’re generous in sharing others’ interesting blogs when you’re reading and exploring online, others will be more likely to reciprocate and support you.

The Anatomy of a Shareable, Linkable + Traffic-Friendly Post

While I’ve capture a lot of the key ingredients of successfully blogging for business, I’m the first to admit that I’ve only scratch the surface. It’s a huge and fascinating topic!

Yet, if you follow the above nine tips you’ll be well set up. And if you’ve then tasted blood and want a feast of analysis to guide your blogging to even loftier heights, check out this excellent Hubspot article.

Enjoy your blogging adventure – and creating content your customers crave!

We get excited writing great blogs that reflect the uniqueness and values of your company. If you’d like to know more about compelling, engaging business blog writing, please book a chat now.

Oh, and if you found this blog post useful, please share or comment on it. Cheers!