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How Blogging Helps Your Business
If you have a website you should have a blog section that includes helpful and relevant advice for your site visitors. A blog is essentially an article that you publish as a page on your website. The best blog article usually includes text, links, and imagery.
These types of articles are published oftentimes for two reasons:
- For the enjoyment of your site visitors. This form of content allows site visitors to learn more about your area of specialty. They can get helpful guidance, learn new facts or receive advice from you, the expert.
- For better ranking in search engine results pages. Any type of text on a webpage, including blogs, give search engines more information about what your website is about. This information is used by search engines like Google and Bing to include your site where appropriate in their results pages.
Thinking Of Blog Posts In An Easy Way
Blogs are not that difficult to write or publish. If you can compose lengthy social media posts and publish them, then it is likely you can write and publish a blog.
Think of your blogs as an extension of your social media posts. We all understand social media posts to be short blurbs that you write about a topic that is of interest to you or your followers. Therefore social posts are essentially a summarised version of your thoughts as it relates to a specific subject matter. Now consider your blogs as not just the summary but the full story or your full thoughts broken down into a lot more words and organized so that you explain your opinion or the facts in a much more detailed way.
If you are truly an expert in your area of business then coming up with ideas or fully explaining your subject matter in a blog post should be as easy as coming up with an idea for a social media post.
Quick Facts About Blogging For Business
“1. Companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites and 77% of internet users read blogs. 2. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.”
Source: OptinMonster “Blogging Stats 2021”
How do you write good quality content?
The most important blogging tool and the one you’ll probably use the most is Grammarly. This editing tool is used to ensure that your text is readable, written in the best way possible while also checking for spelling and grammar errors. It will also alert you to any possible signs of plagiarism in your text.
Grammarly comes as an online application and also a browser extension that will check your text as you write it out. It is virtually impossible to publish blogs with errors if you use this tool properly.
How To Capture Your Blog Reader’s Attention
Your blog title is the first thing readers will see in most instances. Coming up with a good blog title is the first step to grabbing your reader’s attention.
Hubspot Blog Idea Generator
Writer’s block is just par for the course when you are a writer of any type of content, blogs included. Use the Hubspot Blog Idea Generator tool to help you discover a whole year worth of blog post titles. No, this tool will not write the blogs for you but it will help you with crafting catchy blog titles and coming up with ideas that your audience will find helpful and relevant.
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How To Write An Article Fast And Easy
If you’re going to write your own article content then this might be the hardest part for you as a beginner. Though there is a multitude of ways to make composing lengthy content much more seamless.
Google Voice Typing
The first option is to use the Google Voice Typing feature. This feature is as it sounds, you talk and Google docs turns your words into text. Google voice typing feature will save you countless hours of tapping out each word on your keyboard. Simply download the Google docs app for free to your phone, open up a new document, click on the microphone that appears on your keyboard, and begin to speak the words that you want Google to type out.
Using Voice Typing On Desktop
The best part about using Google Voice Typing is that you can use it anytime a great blog idea strikes you no matter where you are or what you are doing.
Let’s say you’re cooking, your hands are occupied but your phone is within voice reach. You simply open the Google doc app, start a new document, click the microphone and the Google Docs voice typing feature will translate your words into text. You’d be surprised how quickly you can talk up an 800+ word article with little to no effort.
PLR Articles
The second option is the often frowned upon PLR articles. In the content marketing industry, you either love them or hate them. We tend to have a “love them” outlook for BEGINNERS ONLY.
So what exactly is a PLR article? Well, first let’s clarify what a PLR article IS NOT.
- It is not an article that you simply find, then copy and paste it into a blog post page on your website.
- It is definitely not an article that you claim credit for writing when you have put absolutely no effort into making it your own.
- It is, however, a great way for beginners to get a jumpstart on publishing content in long-form when you are not yet used to writing long-form content.
PLR articles, by definition, are pieces of content that you can buy the rights to edit, publish and claim authorship for in a legal way. You essentially purchase the license for this content in order to claim it as your own. These articles are written very well, have good word counts, and most times have the most up-to-date information as it relates to the subject matter. Simply edit the article with your own opinions and facts, then publish it on your site as your own work. Process the article through a plagiarism checker for best results.
How To Distribute Your Blogs To Your Audience
WordPress CMS
You’re probably wondering at this point how you can effectively distribute your content across the Internet in order to get the most views on your article. We suggest WordPress as your chosen CMS. Although there are numerous other CMS options, we have found WordPress to be the best option for beginners. Your WordPress website will automatically come with the ability to incorporate a blogging section.
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Once you have your website up and running, you will begin your blogging journey by creating a blog post in the WordPress dashboard. You copy and paste all of your content from the original Google doc or simply begin typing within the WP post itself. When you’re done, simply click publish and your blog post is live for the world to see.
Yoast SEO Plugin
It’s always helpful to install a plugin like Yoast to help optimize your website’s post for search engines. This will allow your blog post to be found through search engine results pages. Complete all of the steps as suggested within the Yoast section of the page for best results.
Social Media As A Tool
Once you have published your post live to your site it’s best that you take some extra measures to ensure that your audience knows that your post exists. One of the easiest ways to get the word out about a new blog post is to use your social media business pages. Create a social media post that summarizes the content in your blog post, add a link that will take followers directly to your blog post.
Email Marketing Is Useful
Your second-best option for content distribution is to use your existing email marketing list. Create an email within your email marketing platform, add a summary of your blog post along with an image and a button that will allow your email subscribers to click straight through to your blog post.
Getting the word out about your blog post is probably the easiest part of being a Blogger. There are many different ways for you to let the world know that your blog posts exist. For beginners, the most difficult part oftentimes is getting the blog post written and edited. The tools and tips mentioned here should help you get started on your way to writing good-quality blog posts that your readers will enjoy.
