The Business of Blogging

@Sahmedia

@CrunchyCarpets

Kerry@sahmedia.com

Why are you asking to do MORE work???

Create dialogue with your customers

Simple way to communicate about who you are and why you do what your do

Share more information about your product service

Become the Go To for your niche. Become the TRUST person

People use social media and their browsers to research as much as they can before a purchase. Give them a reason WHY to pick you

Instant Marketing Material

Your blog is your content marketing for sharing on your social channels

SEO & Keywords

You have now increased your searchability for your website and business

Being a ‘Trust Agent’ in your field…

Become the ‘Expert’…

• Identify your goals for blogging - WHY• Determine whom your blog is for – WHO is your

audience• Create killer content – EXPERT STATUS• Find a sustainable blogging rhythm – MAKE IT

WORK• Grow your audience – SEO, SOCIAL MEDIA

MARKETING

Blogging Tools: Editorial Calendars

Setting up an editorial calendar is probably the simplest way to make sure your blog is part of your overall marketing strategy.

Merging your marketing plan for your year ahead (you do have one?) with your blogging plan allows you to layout your content strategy for the year ahead.

Seasonal events/sales & promotions

Company Milestones

Product launches/changes and additions

Customer questions

Community events (charities)

Professional events/tradeshows/niche awards and events

General issues/news that are related to you or your product or business

The list is endless….but your blog has now become the heart of your marketing strategy.

Blogging Basics A Catchy Title: A long tail keyword headline that draws readers in and

indicates what the post is about. Use action verbs and questions.

It is a blog post, not a novel: Aim for between 250 and 500 words per post. If it is a HUGE topic, split it into two parts.

Post Regularly: Once a week is fine in my opinion for a business blog. Consistency is key and twice a month is okay if you keep to that and produce good content.

Get Help. If you HAVE a team, get everyone involved in content creation. If you are on your own, plan it out and ask for guest posts. The next step is to outsource the content creation.

Don’t forget the visuals. Photos, Images, Infographics are all great shareables on your social media channels.

Measure What?

Blogging doesn’t always direct immediate sales, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t contribute to the final deal

One way to measure the ROI of your blog and social media is to track lead generation. Encourage readers to subscribe to your blog, join your newsletter list, or submit contact info to access gated content

You can also calculate the cost of writing and publishing (time) that post to how many views and shares it gets using your sites analytics tools

Don’t have TOO high expectations for your blogging efforts. It is not a short term project. It takes time to find and build your audience and your own creative voice and what works with your marketing and branding efforts