Blogging is one of the most overlooked components of a marketing strategy. While it does not directly generate sales, it is essential to optimize your online presence.
According to CBO Agency, blogging has many benefits, including but not limited to:
- boosting your position on search engines
- developing and strengthening relationships with new and existing customers
- establish yourself as an industry leader
- create opportunities for sharing.
Many people hesitate to start blogging for their business because they don’t think they have the time or ability.
You don’t have to be Shakespeare to write a good blog, nor do you need to reinvent the wheel with an innovative piece of literature.
Here are some key tips to demystify the art of the blog- and how to write one that will help your business achieve its bottom line.
1) Provide value to your audience
Before you start writing, it’s essential to understand what your audience wants and needs. Who is your audience? What questions would they have if they were interested in your services? What questions do you hear over and over again at your academy?
These are all great jumping-off points when brainstorming blog topics.
When you’re deciding on a topic, it is important to narrow in and have a clear focus. Ask yourself- if I could only respond to one question, what would it be?
In this case, the focus is teaching martial arts school owners how to write a blog to help their online presence. I am answering the question, “How do I write a blog?” for my ideal audience member, a martial arts owner.
2) Set yourself up for success
You must position yourself as an expert and establish credibility and authority, so your target audience will listen to you and value what you have to say.
Why are you qualified to answer your target audience’s question? What have you done to position yourself as an expert in the topic?
Sometimes, this speaks for itself (e.g., a martial arts school writing a blog about the sport’s benefits, or a digital marketing agency writing about how to blog 😉).
However, you’ll need to paint the picture if it is not apparent. Unless the topic is incredibly complex or requires a specific level of expertise, researching the subject can be enough to establish your own credibility.
3) Get the writing fundamentals down
We all know the feeling of reading over your paper five times and still finding errors. While your writing does not need to be perfect, your grammar needs to be correct enough to be understood and taken seriously.
The best process I can recommend would be creating an outline one day, writing another, and editing the next day. This will adequately space out your time so you can proofread and catch the highest number of errors.
Always check for spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.
If you need help, invest in a tool like Grammarly to help you with your writing.
4) Other style considerations
When you are writing anything, it is essential to consider how easy it is to read.
For blogging, white space is your friend. Make use of bullets, bold headings, and short paragraphs, so your blog is easily skimmable.
Writing short, simple, and concise sentences will also make your blog more readable. Use simpler, more straightforward words rather than verbose and superfluous language to explain your topic.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully after reading this blog, you feel more prepared and motivated to write incredible blogs for your school. As I mentioned, you do not need to be the best writer or the most knowledgable to provide a significant amount of value to target your audience.
Knowing what your target audience wants to know, and catering to that, will set you up for success in your blog strategy.
Blogging is only one component of your digital marketing strategy. if you’d like to learn more about how you can stay top-of-mind for your ideal customer, check out our blogs about 7 Ways to Reach your Audience Online or the differences between Organic and Paid Social Media.
