Let’s face it, blogs take a serious amount of time to write and publish if you want them to perform well for your business. So what is the best content strategy for blogs to get the most out of them?
We’re going to take a look at all the elements you need to wrap around your actual blog plus a content strategy to help promote them. Better dig in.
Content strategy for blogs
Firstly, we need to know how blogs fit into our wider content strategy. Are your blogs going to do the heavy lifting of SEO, driving new traffic to your website? Or are they going to answer lots of questions, supporting the work of your sales team? A bit of both?
You’ll also need to know if your blogs are there to inform and educate or to share industry news. Understanding the purpose of your blogs will help you plan out the best blogs to write on your website. It’ll also save you time writing blogs you don’t need.
Everything you need in a blog
Aside from the words, your content strategy for blogs should also include all the accessories and page furniture. This means thinking about any pictures, videos or audio which goes along with the writing.
As a minimum, you should have a cover image to go along with your blog. This will help it sit nicely on your website and break up the page. Ideally, you want your cover image to tell the story of the blog. The hard and fast rule of images is that they should add value to the message you’re telling. Not just be a pretty way to break up the text.
Next, you need to break up the text. Use well-spaced headers that tell the story of the blog. You might also want to use a contents section, especially with a long blog where your reader might want to jump to a particular section.
You’ll also need a call to action. Remember, any content needs to lead to a product so your call-to-action should lead to the next stage of the customer journey. This might be a lead magnet, to book a call with you or to read another blog on the subject. Whatever it is, don’t forget to add it.
If you do have a lead magnet, you’ll need to have a way for someone to sign up within the blog. This might be a popup or an inline content block where they can sign up uninterrupted on the page. Make sure you have all your email marketing set up to deliver the lead magnet.
Finally, you’ll want to make sure you’re linking between other blogs on your website, plus any outside research that you’ve done on other people’s websites.
Bonus bits for blogs
I mentioned before that you might want to add video or audio to your blogs. This is a good way to go back to an old blog and give it a bit of extra polish. You should definitely build blog improvements into your content strategy for blogs. Old, neglected blogs on your website should be regularly updated.
Consider breaking your blog down into a few quick tips and creating a video to demonstrate. Or, if you have an instructional blog which shows your reader how to do something, add a video showing how to do it so your readers have options on how they get their content.
Not everyone will want video instructions and not everyone will want written instructions.
You might want to turn your blog into a podcast. If you do, you can embed the audio on the blog. The more options you can give to your audience, the better.
Repurpose your blog
Once your blog is published, that’s only the start of the journey. Next, you need to make sure people will come and read it.
Start by sharing it on your social channels. Is there an infographic you can add to explain your point in a more visual way?
You can also cut up your blog into smaller chunks and share these as value posts on social media. For example, you might have a blog sharing five tips on how to do something. You can turn each tip into a separate post or all tips into a carousel post. If you’re creating videos, you can use video snippets for social promotion as well.
Don’t forget that a bit of editing is all you need to turn that blog into a newsletter.
Let’s say you write a blog a week, you could get a week’s worth of content from that blog alone if you post once a day. You don’t even need to use the cover image or link to the blog when you do.
Got your best blogs?
Finally, when your blog is up, published and shared far and wide, don’t forget about it. Make a point of checking which blogs are performing well and keep them in your social media mix for regular re-sharing.
You might also want to share your blogs on other websites. Pitch your ideas and explain why their audience will want to read them as well as your own.
Best content strategy for blogs
The best content strategy for blogs is one where you understand what you want to achieve by writing blogs in the first place. Even with AI, getting blogging right takes time. There is a lot of work to do to get the most value from a blog. It’s worth it to put in the effort.
Need a hand? Get my blogging checklist here.