Content Tips for Business Bloggers

Creating top quality content is the way to attract visitors and to turn them into repeat visitors. By sheer force of your brilliance, you will sway prospects into paying customers. Now, here is the problem: in surveys of the perceived credibility of news sources, blogs and social media rank further down the food chain than, say, newspapers or radio, particularly with older demographics. Why? A big reason is that people see them as less authoritative and as thinly disguised sales pitches. The content that you create can help you combat these problems and create a valuable resource for visitors – and your business.

When done well, blogs help businesses not only earn a higher search engine rank but also educate and engage visitors. The key to great content is to teach, to tell instead of sell. With this in mind, you can create content around:

• The service or product you provide. This is tricky, though, because you have to do it without “selling” that product or service! How do you do it? Define it for visitors. Talk about the benefits – not the benefits of buying from you, but the benefits of the service for visitors.
• Common mistakes when consumers purchase this product or service, as well as common mistakes companies make when providing them.
• How to choose a company that provides the service or product best. For instance: “Top 10 factors to consider when choosing an SEO company” or “5 things to avoid when choosing an SEO company.”
• Pros and cons of the product or service. (It’s not your fault if there are a few more in the pro column, right?)
• Best ways to use this product or service to improve some aspect of a visitor’s work or life. Tips are great, as are tutorials.
• FAQs. What do customers ask you most often? Others inevitably have those same questions and content can be built around the answers. This provides them with real, valuable information that they will seek out.
• Related products or services, even if you may not provide them. This gives the reader value without the sales pitch. They know you will tell them what they need to know, and this establishes your credibility.

Creating solid content depends on knowing your customers. What do they need? What do they want? What are their interests and concerns? When you can build accurate and complete buyer personas, then you can tailor content for your audience that is effective and relevant.