When companies contact us about our blog content writing services, they inevitably have a number of questions. Some want to better understand the benefits of blogging, what's involved, cost-effectiveness and the cost of packages; others want to know what services a blogging agency offers and how we operate. This article has the answers.
How can blogging help my business?
How you choose to use your blog will depend on your business goals, but here are some of the many benefits of business blogging.
1. Blogging is great for SEO
Blogging boosts SEO in multiple ways.
It feeds Google fresh content, keeping algorithms happy.
It can increase a user's 'time on page', giving positive user experience signals.
Blog posts can target SEO long-tail keywords with relevant, useful content.
Every post provides internal linking opportunities, adding relevancy to each page.
Every blog post provides backlink opportunities, boosting your site's credibility.
2. A blog drives traffic to your website
According to a study by Hubspot, having a business blog can bring you 55% more website visitors.
How?
Search engine results pages: Blog posts can provide the answers to people's online search queries. If you're on top of your SEO, your high-quality keyword-focused blog articles will likely rank on page one of search engine results pages. Provided your search listing entices the reader, you should get clicks through to your website.
Social media: Post links to your blog articles on social channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to drive both new and existing audiences to your website.
3. A blog gives your business personality
Knowing your customers and writing with them in mind is a powerful way to engage them long-term. And by being consistent in your tone and the types of content that you share, you can distinguish your business from your competitors.
4. Blog posts make great social media content
According to Demandmetric, interesting content is one of the main reasons people follow brands on social media. Blog posts make engaging content that is highly sharable, increasing your brand awareness. And because a well-maintained blog is updated regularly, you also have a constant source of content for your socials.
5. Blogging builds trust and credibility
Your blog is where you can demonstrate your thought leadership, expertise and experience with insights into industry trends, tips, advice, observations and solutions to customer problems.
6. People are more likely to buy from you if you blog
The 2019 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report revealed that 60% of consumers feel blog posts are valuable in the early stages of the buying process. If you need a compelling reason to create high-quality keyword-focused blog content, this is it. Optimise blog posts for conversion for the best chance of turning readers into buyers.
7. Blogging can grow a subscriber list
Adding a subscribe button to your blog can be a great way to keep you in peoples' minds and nurture brand loyalty. If you regularly publish great quality blog posts that are helpful or interesting to your target audience, people will want to sign up to receive your content in their inbox. But a word of caution: this does not mean spamming them with offers and product information. Be authentic and trustworthy – send the subscriber what they ask for and nothing unsolicited.
8. You can repurpose blog content
Publishing regular blog content is a costly exercise for businesses. It takes time to develop a strategy and write targeted content that engages your audience, and if you outsource your blog writing, you’ll want a decent return on investment. Yet so many businesses publish blog posts and then forget about them. They may even think that blogging isn’t worth it because they’re not getting much traffic to their site. But here’s the thing. Blog posts keep on giving. It’s just a matter of knowing how to get more bang for your buck.
Smart marketers are strategic about their blogging efforts and use their best-converting articles to create additional marketing assets at very little cost. This is known as repurposing content, i.e. taking something that exists already and repackaging it into something else, such as case studies, infographics, podcasts and explainer videos. The list goes on.
Is blogging right for my business?
If you want to achieve any of the goals described above, blogging is probably a good plan for your business. However, you need to have the resources to invest in the process. That means either building and managing a skilled in-house team to deliver the process or allocating a monthly budget to outsource the work. If you outsource, you will also need to free up a suitable member of your team to be the point of contact for your digital marketing partner. They will need to be available for briefing, reviewing and signing off work and discussing monthly performance.
What is involved in running a business blog?
As with any marketing tactic, blogging success hinges on several key factors:
1. Strategy and planning
Before committing yourself to running a blog, ask yourself (and your team) a few questions and answer them honestly:
What resources (staff, time, budget) do we have available? Will we create and implement our own strategy or outsource the work?
Do we have enough social media presence to optimise exposure? If not, do we have the resources to develop and implement a social media strategy?
What are our targets in relation to conversion rates, views, leads, shares and timeframes
Who are we targeting?
What will we blog about? What content is our target audience looking for at each stage of the buying cycle? What are our areas of expertise? What pillar and cluster content will we need?
How often will we post?
2. Researching and creating high-quality content
The internet is saturated with content. To cut through the noise, your posts need to be accurate, readable, accessible, current and relevant. In other words, they must be of high quality. This requires thorough research, a deep understanding of the subject matter and a flair for writing.
3. The need for regular blogging
As the saying goes, you have to be in it to win it. The more quality posts you can contribute, the more posts indexed by Google. Over time, this will build your visibility and authority. The more material you have in the public domain, the more likely a potential customer will visit your website to answer their search query. Regular blogging also gives those that have discovered your site more reason to return to it.
4. Optimising for search engines
Search engine optimisation (SEO) will likely be the most time-consuming area of research and planning. If you want your posts to rank well, SEO should be a core part of your blogging strategy, not an afterthought.
5. Promoting posts via social media
A published blog, if written well, will eventually build a following in its own right. However, proactive sharing on social media will gain you quicker, measurable results. It's well-documented that for optimal exposure, you should spend 20% of your time creating posts and 80% of your time promoting them. That includes:
Sharing new and old content across social media channels.
Engaging with people that comment on, share and ask questions about your content.
Building backlink opportunities.
Repurposing your content - email campaigns, downloads, e-books, videos, etc.
Your social media promotion strategy requires as much time and attention as your blogging strategy. The two should run in parallel and be reviewed in relation to each other.
6. Monitoring and adjusting
Successful strategies are dynamic. It's only through continual monitoring and adjustment that you will achieve optimal results.
Here are some of the core factors to monitor and analyse to inform your blogging strategy:
Social media engagement
How each post is ranking for keywords
Keyword opportunities
Click-through rate
Website analytics
Subscribers
Backlinks
Use your findings to:
Develop new content
Improve existing content
Strengthen your promotional strategy.
What services do blogging agencies offer?
Every agency has its own way of working. Some offer tiered 'off-the-shelf' packages that you purchase via their website; others work with the client to build a service tailored to the company's needs and budget. We offer the latter.
The range of services on offer varies greatly too. Many copywriting agencies offer blog writing but not the strategy and content planning or blog management side of things. Other copywriting and digital marketing agencies provide the full suite of services. Full Height Copy is one such agency.
If you opt for a writing only service, you will need to provide the agency with your strategy, content plan (including target keywords) and briefs for each blog post. These things help the agency plan its workload, allocate the most suitable writer(s) to your project and deliver top-quality content that achieves your business goals. If you can't provide these things, we suggest you pay your chosen agency to do the work for you. Beware of companies that are happy to write blogs for your business without any of these inputs – your blog posts will be a stab in the dark. You will also want to either monitor performance data yourself or pay the agency to do that for you.
Is blogging cost-effective?
Very – when done properly. A data-driven SEO blog that is well-maintained will help your web pages rank highly for a growing number of search terms in the organic listings of search engine results pages. However, maintenance is key. You need to update and adjust your content in response to ever-changing algorithm ranking factors to yield the best results.
A blog also provides high-quality, sharable content for social media channels and email campaigns. It allows you to build a subscriber list and keep your business in front of potential customers. In addition, you can repurpose the content as ebooks, infographics, videos and podcasts.
Should I outsource or blog in-house?
There are a few answers to this question.
If the primary purpose of your blog is to help with SEO and content marketing, we strongly recommend either outsourcing the work or building a suitably experienced in-house team. Learning SEO takes time, and the techniques and technology involved in delivering effective SEO are rapidly evolving. You will need people within your team who can:
Build your strategy based on your business goals and data-driven insights.
Devise an effective content plan that fits your budget.
Write engaging SEO content.
Upload content to your website and make technical SEO adjustments.
Monitor, review and report on performance.
If SEO isn't your primary reason for setting up a blog, you may wish to consider giving the role of blog writer to a competent writer within your team. This might apply if you use your blog to share company updates or thought leadership articles.
The benefits of outsourcing over in-house teams
Outsourcing comes with fewer risks and costs and more benefits than building an in-house team, including the following:
Initial setup – recruiting in-house talent requires significantly more time and internal resources than hiring an agency.
Employee absence and turnover – your operations grind to a halt when one of your team is absent from work or leaves.
Capability and expertise – agencies can usually provide a wider range of skills, experience and tools than a business can build in-house, especially in the early days.
Scalability – agencies are designed to handle high volumes of work.
Cost – hiring an agency removes overheads such as employee salaries, pensions, holiday and sick pay, and the cost of software. Look for an agency that doesn't tie you into a contract, prices services to your budget and allows you to scale your package up or down in line with your needs.
Will my blogs get to page one of Google?
While a well-written blog post provides value to the reader, a well-designed SEO strategy is vital in making sure that your blog appears on their screen in the first place. It won't happen overnight. It may take six months or more before your blog post climbs the ranks, but with a savvy strategy, you can rank on page one of Google.
Putting together an SEO strategy requires a finely tuned approach to research. Keyword research, for instance, needs to be undertaken fresh with every new post as trends dictate constant changes in Google search phrases. You'll need to review the keywords that you target in existing posts. Are they still popular, or do you need to refocus your search term? Are you ranking well, or do you need to develop your post? And don't forget, the frequency of keywords throughout a post will make or break its success in Google rankings.
SEO isn't just about the words on the page. Search engine algorithms want your website to run smoothly from a technical perspective, provide a positive user experience and demonstrate trust and authority through backlinks from other trustworthy sites.
How much do blog content packages cost?
Agencies and freelancers offer anything from promises of blog posts for £30 per post to high-volume blog management packages for £20K per month. The charlatans are pretty easy to spot and avoid. If you think you're being quoted too little for high-quality output, you're probably right. If an agency proposes an eye-watering quote and can't explain the cost, you're probably being shafted.
So how do you know what you should pay?
Any reputable agency will offer a free consultation or audit to establish the type and level of service that you will need to deliver the results that you are looking for. Their quote for the work should be based on this assessment. Ask a couple of agencies to provide an evaluation and quote. You will soon identify the company that is offering you the best value for money.
Also, remember that 'fit' is as important as an agency's experience and budget alignment. After all, you are looking for a partner provider. Does their approach to work resonate with you? Can you see yourself working with them long-term? Seasoned agencies will always assess new leads for 'fit' because when the two parties misalign, neither party benefits.
The bottom line
Your blogging requirements are as unique as your business. Any reputable digital marketing agency will base its assessment of your needs on this fact. And if you don't yet know what you need, they will help you establish that before asking you to part with your marketing budget.
Need a hand creating SEO blog posts that your readers and search engines will love? Take a look at our blog writing and blog management services.
