Today’s online business environment demands that companies keep a steady flow of fresh content with effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on their websites in order to improve and maintain their search result ranking, which directly affect their traffic. Planning that content ongoingly can be a serious challenge. How do you continually come up with topics that will engage your visitors and boost your bottom line?
- Consider Your Current Customers – The bulk of your blog content should, obviously, target your current customer base. That’s simple enough at first glance, but think about what will keep those customers coming back to your site at regular intervals and encourage them to share your posts with colleagues, promoting you as an expert source. You’re producing marketing copy, but in this instance, a foundational sales tactic will help you create content that will hit home with your customers: Identify their pain and alleviate it. What challenges are your customers facing, and how can your business help? Another source of topics is presenting your customers with new practices they could adopt to help their own businesses, and which would cause them to use more of your product in the process. Write about new laws or rules that will affect their businesses. When you write effective and on-target posts, your site becomes a hub for expert advice in your niche, and people will seek it out and continue to visit to learn more.
- Think About The Customers You Want – Next to your current customer base, the group of readers your blog should work hardest to attract are the customers who represent areas you wish to expand in. Let’s say your company distributes industrial gases and your current customer base consists of mostly welders. Provide value in your blog for those welders, but also consider what other types of business will use your products. In this example, you might target laboratories or cryogenic facilities, food-processing plants, and wedding planners, who use a lot of helium. By writing content for these prospects, you let them know you’ve thought of their needs and have valuable insights and solutions for them, too.
- Take A New Tack – Don’t be afraid to shop the competition, but don’t settle for copying their topics. Take points mentioned in their posts and develop them into something new (and hopefully better) that demonstrates why you are the experts. Pull the best points from several different competitors’ posts and use them to build a fresh take with added value. Another smart way to use a competitor’s content as a springboard for your own is to choose a piece where they’re given a broad overview of a topic (like a list-style article), and develop each point into a series of in-depth posts on your own blog.
- Stay On-Trend – Stay on top of industry trends, including things like new products or technologies, new laws or regulations, or relevant breaking news. When you write about this kind of topic, be sure you frame the issues in terms of your customers and how their interests may be affected, or how they can take advantage of a new opportunity. If you gain a reputation for bringing your readers’ attention to the latest and greatest, or as an early-warning system for potential pitfalls, your customers will share your content more readily and will return to your site more often to stay apprised.
- Take Advantage Of Seasonal Content – “Seasonal” content goes far beyond holiday tie-ins. Your particular business will dictate how you can best take advantage of seasonal variations, but overall, seasonal content offers opportunities for your company to increase business during times that are typically slow, and to encourage customers to budget for using your services in the near future. Maybe your company sells windows and installation services, and winter is your slowest season. Post in January about how expensive it is to “stick it out” through the rest of the winter with a broken window, and explain to prospects how easy and painless it would be for you to come out and fix that for them, despite all that snow outside. At the end of winter, let your customers know why it’s important for them to plan to have their windows inspected, repaired, and maintained as soon as the snow is melted, so they can enjoy a comfortable and economical summer.
Plan Ahead With Expert SEO Advice
If your business keeps a blog on its website (and it really should!), you’ll help yourself to greater success by keeping a running list of topic ideas, and by maintaining a master calendar for the year’s content. Working with an SEO company to develop that calendar and plan engaging content that is also optimized to draw the most visitors possible to your site gives you a serious edge over the competition. Make an annual plan for your content, then be prepared to shift on the fly as trends arise that need immediate coverage to maintain your reputation as the go-to site for current information in your industry.
