Plenty of businesses understand how important content is, but they don’t know what kind of content they should offer. Blog posts that read more like ad portfolios or lecture notes miss the mark because what customers want something from your blog that they don’t get from company website or landing pages: conversation. Blog posts are your chance to let your customers hear your company’s natural speaking voice. Social media is good for that too, but a blog lets you steer the conversation in ways social media can’t match. Here’s how to keep your company blog exciting enough to attract new readers and welcome them into your brand’s conversation.
Use Keywords Naturally
Businesses don’t just have blogs for human readers; they also want to satisfy their SEO marketing needs. When both purposes come together seamlessly, that isn’t a problem, but too often, blog posts turn into keyword-stuffed blurbs that turn away your regular readers. Keywords are still vital to SEO, but they should happen naturally, not get wedged into every sentence. If you look, you’ll see phrases such as ″business content″ or ″content marketing″ in our posts, but the keywords are just part of the overall conversation, not the sole purpose of it. You wouldn’t enjoy a conversation with someone who always said the same phrases, so don’t make blog readers slog through a sea of keywords either.
All About ″You″
Throughout your school career, you probably had English teachers drill third-person writing into every assignment. For academic and scientific work, writing in the third person makes sense. It sounds more detached, clinical and neutral. Those traits are precisely what you don’t want in a conversation, so write in the second person and let your readers know you’re talking straight to them. Depending on the post, you could also go with first-person writing and bring ″I″ and ″we″ to the conversation; that’s up to you and your content writing team.
Consider Your Audience
Who reads your blog? When you know, you can aim your posts precisely at them, not over their heads or beneath their familiarity level. In B2B industries, bloggers usually speak to fairly knowledgeable readers who’ve done some research or have a good handle on industry terminology. For these readers, a blog that defines the most elementary terms or offers guidelines for beginners just doesn’t have anything to say. Conversely, if you’re using your blog to connect with new users, introductory-level posts that go light on jargon and heavy on explanations is a better bet. You wouldn’t have the same conversation with friends as you would with co-workers, and the same should hold true for your blog.
Read It out Loud
The best blog posts sound as good as they look. When you read them aloud, you get a sense of the writer’s voice and tone. Give it a try with your own blog’s content and listen to how they come across to readers. If you sound as though you’re delivering a lecture, your blog’s probably failing to connect with readers. If the tone sounds more like a script for a blaring ad from Crazy Dave’s Discount Hut than like a conversation, you’re advertising too much.
