Are you planning to write articles to boost the online visibility of your business? When the pandemic shutdowns began, our ‘online’ world took on new significance. It’s left many business owners with a heightened regard for the value of a strong online presence. For some types of business, publishing articles is an excellent way to attract readers in the target market, start conversations and generate leads. But before you start writing (or paying content writers) it’s important to pin down your strategy and plan appropriate topics. The best place to start is to understand how publishing articles works (when it does) and the common mistakes that could prevent you from getting results. Let’s take a look at the basics. Choosing the right article topics A common mistake we see, particularly with small business owners who are just beginning to publish articles, is that they want to write articles that are about their businesses, or that directly attempt to sell products or services. It’s a rookie mistake. That type of content typically has little appeal to readers. To be blunt about it, ‘How Great is My Business’ shouldn’t be the recurring theme of your articles. So how do you choose the right topics? Thinking about how and why people find and read business blog content can be helpful in this regard. And one of the most common ways people discover content is by searching for information online. To generate suitable content ideas for discovery by search, it pays to understand how our search habits, the ‘buyer journey’ and the sales funnel come together. Searching online for a specific product or service...
The Coronavirus outbreak in Australia will impact almost every business in some way in the months ahead. But those with largely office-based employees may be able to continue operating and reduce the risk of employees contracting the virus by allowing employees to work from home. Many companies already have remote working guidelines and a communications structure in place, but others will be completely unprepared for this transition. As a content marketing agency, we’ve always worked from home as everything we do is in the digital environment. So combining our own experience working as a ‘distributed team’, with the expertise of some of our HR, IT and communication connections, we’ve put together this guide to help businesses transition their teams to working from home. There are 8 key things you’ll need to have in place to transition and support remote workers: A work-from-home policy OHS checklist & procedures for home-based workers Computers & related infrastructure Internet access for your workers A means of communication & collaboration Remote IT support A way to manage & monitor productivity A way to stay connected & maintain morale 1. Work from home policy Clare Long, principal consultant at Norgay HR Consulting, says businesses that have existing travel and flexible work policies should be reviewing them with the new and fast evolving coronavirus situation in mind. Those whose employees will be working from home for the first time should develop a policy as a matter of urgency. A work-from-home policy should outline the type of arrangements that can be made, and in what circumstances. It should also mention any limitations or conditions (for example, the...
We all want more freedom and more space to do the things we most enjoy in life. If you crave breaking away from the 9-5, and writing is your thing, setting up a freelance writing business could be your dream. It can offer the flexibility of working the hours that most suit you, from any location you choose. However, when you go freelance, you’re going into business – and if you hope to succeed, you need to be business-like in your approach from day one. Here are 6 tips to help you turn your freelance pipedream into reality. 1. Prepare financially Switching to a freelance career or not, everyone should know their basic cost of living, or the minimum needed to cover the bills and food each week. If you are contemplating leaving a salaried job to start freelance writing, set aside extra savings (if you can) that will cover your living expenses for a period of time once you leave your job. Alternatively, if it won’t cause issues with your employer, start your business and begin engaging in activities to build your client base before you take the leap out of employment. There are multiple avenues for finding regular writing work – we cover this topic in-depth in our freelance course, Build Your Freelance Content Writing Business. 2. Set your business up correctly so you’re ready to trade These are a few things to consider when setting up any business. If you’ve only ever worked as an employee, you’re likely to need to: Register an ABN (Australian Business Number) If you want to trade under a business name...
Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and generates three times the amount of leads. Source: Lyfe And one of the best tools in your content marketing armory are blog posts. Blogging is an essential part of driving conversions in your B2B marketing funnel as the right kind of content can strike a chord with your target audience and effectively cultivate customer loyalty. That’s because well-researched blogs have the potential to drive strong emotional connections with target customers. The more authentic the brand, the stronger its brand recall and loyalty. 91 percent of consumers say they recommend the brands they trust to their friends and family. But before you dive into blogging, it’s important to find blog topics that can drive organic traffic. How do I Find Blog Topics? Source: Slideshare 1. Spend Time Getting to Know Your Customer What’s the point of writing in-depth blog posts if no one’s searching for the them? If blogs aren’t attracting marketing qualified leads, then tracking metrics such as increased page views and engagement won’t do much to enhance your bottom line. One of the ways you can cut through all the noise is to home in on your target consumer and understand their problems. Here are a few factors you should take into account: Biographical information: What’s your consumer’s age, gender, income level, and profession? Life Aspirations: What do they want to achieve in the medium term? Problems: What keeps them up at night and how can you help? Content: What are their go-to sources of information? Before you get started, however, dive a little deeper into business...
You needn’t be a professional copywriter or experienced marketer to write business blogs. To improve your blog posts, you just need to know how to use them to your advantage. Whether you can knock out a quick article in under 30 minutes, or spend hours agonising over the right opening line to snag your audience, the most important thing to remember is that you know your business better than anyone else. Couple that with these four essential steps, and you can improve your blog posts and increase your chances of converting readers. 1. Choose the right topics Content marketing agency professionals spend years honing the craft of topic ideation and delivery – it’s why they’re so good at taking businesses large and small to the next level. But you don’t have to be a content marketing expert to recognise the importance of choosing the right topics. After all, without an interesting topic, no one is going to read your blogs. And if no one reads your blogs, your online presence will suffer greatly. So just how do you choose the right topics? Start by asking yourself the following: What are you passionate about? If you’re not interested in the topic, or it’s not relevant to your business, that will seep into your writing and turn off the reader. Who’s the audience? As a business owner, you likely cater to multiple demographics and have more than one target audience. Do your blogs appeal to everyone, or are they niche topics where you can drive readers towards a particular product or service? Is it evergreen? An ‘evergreen’ blog is one that has long-term appeal. It’s...
One of the questions I’m asked most often by SME owners and marketing managers is: “How often should we publish on our blog?” There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. If you’re just starting out, my advice will normally be: publish one or two articles a month until you’re able to see that your strategy is working, and your articles are reaching and resonating with your audience. On the other hand, if you’ve been publishing articles for some time, but aren’t getting the desired results, I’d recommend reviewing your content strategy before you worry about the number of articles you’re publishing. Some people are surprised when I recommend publishing so few articles. Once the decision is made to start publishing, they want to maximise the result, and are often considering a blog publishing schedule of 8+ articles a month. The problem with this, is that if you’re publishing quality in-depth articles and paying a blog writer or a content marketing agency to create them, that’s a substantial outlay. And it will be wasted if your articles aren’t finding an audience or aren’t resonating well with the desired audience. You can’t maximise the result until you know you’re getting one. The good news is that once you are confident your content is working and contributing to your bottom line, you’ll be able to review your content budget and turn up the dial to increase those results. The key to getting results with a business blog There are two key factors I find are often overlooked by businesses just starting out with their blog. When one or both are missed, the...
