Establishing a corporate blog is an excellent way to increase traffic and conversions. However, content marketing is complex, and there are many elements that your firm will need to keep in mind when crafting a strategy. I’ve distilled these down to the five most important best practices for boosting traffic and conversions.
Five Corporate Blog Best Practices to Increase Conversions
Here are the top corporate blog best practices you should leverage:
- Set specific goals
- Base your titles on the keywords your customers search
- Focus on 2-3 areas of expertise
- Get to the point quickly
- Include a graphic that is the result of original research
Set Specific Goals
Establish clear business goals from the start so you can determine your most valuable keywords and the criteria that define success. For example, do you want to enhance the efforts of your sales teams? If so, you will need transactional keywords that are lower on the sales funnel so you can target readers who are ready to buy. And to know if your strategy is working, track goal completions and conversions. On the other hand, if your main objective is to raise brand awareness, you will want keywords that appear higher in the sales funnel and success will instead be measured by traffic rates. We chronicled the KPIs we’ve found to be most effective for evaluating corporate blogs in this article.
Base Your Titles on the Keywords Your Customers Search
There are five ways of choosing keywords:
- Intuition: You can brainstorm keywords your customers are most likely to type into Google based on your product knowledge and previous experience.
- Customer feedback: If you want to know what customers type into Google to find a company like yours, ask them! You can collect feedback through surveys or interviews.
- Keyword tools: Tools such as Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner can help you identify relevant keywords.
- Follow your competitors’ example: See what’s worked for other companies and compete against them by writing better content on similar keywords or topics.
- Run a PPC campaign: You can always pay Google to test which keywords will be most effective. However, this not only costs money, but PPC results have less credibility with searchers.
No matter what method you use, you need to thoroughly vet every single keyword and make sure it is valuable to your specific customers. Check that your site is not already ranking for it and that there is a good possibility you could rank for it. Be sure the keyword is transactional and has enough search volume to make it worth your while.
Focus on 2-3 Areas of Expertise
Don’t target every major keyword for your industry at once. Pick the 2 – 3 that best represent your expertise and select the long-tail variations that have volume and low to medium competition. This gives your blog an area of specialization and shows Google that your site is “obsessed” with a specific topic. Google will appreciate your quality content about specialized topics and will reward you with a higher SERP.
Get to the Point Quickly
Keep introductions short and sweet and make sure they tell readers the value of reading further. Write in small text blocks and don’t be afraid to add paragraph breaks sooner than you would in print. Use bulleted lists and subheadings that break information down into digestible “nuggets” of information. People want to know why they should spend their time on your page, so make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for quickly.
Also, ensure the right balance between giving Google enough text to crawl and being concise enough to keep readers engaged. Blog articles or landing pages need to be at least 600 words to draw Google’s attention, but a 1,200 word post is ideal.
Include a Graphic That is the Result of Original Research
Include an eye-catching graphic, chart, or image as your lead image, inviting readers to click and read on. This graphic should appear at the top of the post itself, above the fold, to grab the attention of your readers. Select a graphic that isn’t simply a stock photo but rather something that stems from research your organization performed. This way, readers will get real, unique value from your graphic.
Need Help Implementing Corporate Blog Best Practices?
Implementing these corporate blog best practices takes a lot of work. And if you don’t have the time, resources, or inclination to spend on optimizing your corporate blog, First Page Sage can help. We can completely take over the work of managing your blog, from keyword research to tracking traffic KPIs. Our expert team of content creators is always ready to craft effective content strategies and produce high-quality thought leadership that helps you achieve your business goals.
If you would like to let the experts take care of your corporate blog, contact us.
