Blogging in content marketing is one of the most effective ways a company can reach and engage its target audience. It is a key piece of any successful content marketing strategy and should be at the forefront of your content efforts.
Don’t believe me? Content marketing statistics from recent surveys of thousands of marketers show that blog posts have been proven to generate three times more leads than outbound marketing techniques. What’s even better is that blogging focuses on creating evergreen content, resulting in long-term benefits that outbound campaigns simply can’t offer.
For those still on the fence, this blog post explores the seven key benefits of incorporating blogging into your content marketing campaign, along with some actionable tips to start crafting an effective blogging strategy.
What is Blog Content Marketing?
Let’s break down what blog content marketing really is.
At its core, content marketing involves creating and promoting high-quality content designed to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, nurture potential customers, and ultimately boost conversions.
Content marketing covers a variety of mediums, with the most common forms being video, blog posts, podcasts, and social media posts. But the most successful campaigns all start with blog posts.
Along with being the easiest to integrate into your marketing strategy, blog posts are versatile pieces of content that can be repurposed and redistributed across your marketing channels. For example, an effective blog post can be:
- Converted into video and audio formats for video channels and podcasts.
- Broken into smaller chunks to republish on social media platforms.
- Used as helpful assets featured within your newsletters and outreach campaigns.
And let’s not forget the conversion potential blogs have on their own. Blogs don’t just attract visitors—they help guide them through their buyer journey, something we’ll dive into a bit later.
For now, what’s important to understand is that you don’t need to jump into every marketing channel right away. Instead, focus on one or two key channels to build your strategy around, with blog content marketing at the core.
Why Blog? 7 Key Benefits of Blogging in Your Content Strategy
At the end of the day, it’s not the blog content that makes it so valuable to marketers and business owners—it’s the benefits it brings to your business. A well-executed blog can enhance your digital marketing campaign in many ways, and here are some of the key advantages.
1. Improves Search Engine Rankings (SEO)
Publishing top-tier content is meaningless if it doesn’t reach your audience.
The good news? A blog and consistent content creation are some of the best ways to boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and improve visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Well-optimized blog posts not only drive organic traffic to your blog but also help elevate the rankings of your existing web pages. This results in greater search visibility and more traffic to your high-converting sales pages.
However, SEO goes beyond just posting blogs. To fully maximize the impact of your content, it’s best to partner with a content marketing team. Our services are designed to deliver effective strategies that are proven to rank on Google, generate leads, and convert high-value customers.
2. Boosts Brand Awareness and Recognition
When properly optimized for search engines, blog content marketing is a powerful tool for establishing your brand among potential customers.
By creating valuable content that addresses the common interests, questions, and pain points of your target audience, you create multiple touchpoints with your demographic. As a result, potential customers become increasingly familiar with your brand, which leads to heightened brand awareness and recognition across your marketing channels.
3. Drives Organic Lead Generation
A direct benefit of improved SEO rankings is organic lead generation. Blogging is one of the most powerful inbound marketing channels because a single piece of well-optimized content can continue generating leads for years.
With an effective blog content strategy, you won’t have to chase after leads. Instead, potential customers will come to you, driven by the valuable content you’ve created.
4. Establishes Industry Authority and Trust
Having a blog on your website is a powerful way to build trust with your target audience and position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
By addressing common questions and concerns, you become a reliable resource throughout your audience’s research phase in the buyer’s journey. Consistently providing value through your content fosters trust that they will continue to rely on in the future.
5. Nurtures Leads and Boosts Conversions
Well-crafted blog posts and content strategies guide potential customers through each stage of their buyer’s journey. With every new touchpoint, you build a sense of trust that influences their decision-making process.
This trust directly impacts purchasing decisions. When it’s time to choose a product or service, customers are more likely to choose the brand that has helped them during their research, boosting conversions and driving profits for your business.
6. Enhances Customer Engagement and Loyalty
Blog content marketing isn’t just about selling—it’s about building relationships and a strong brand. By consistently providing high-quality, engaging content, you create a foundation of trust with both potential and existing customers.
When you combine this with valuable offerings, you turn your audience into long-term fans. This leads to loyal customers and a powerful brand that continues to drive conversions long into the future.
7. Creates Evergreen Channels for Long-Term Value
One of the greatest advantages of blog content marketing is that it’s the ultimate evergreen channel. While most traditional and digital marketing methods have a limited lifespan determined by the campaign duration, blogs keep working for you long after they’re published.
High-quality blog content tends to have a snowball effect, increasing ROI as your audience grows over time. Though it may require a higher initial investment, the returns are much more exponential and long-lasting than other marketing methods. This makes blogs a more sustainable option than paid advertising, generating more leads at a lower cost.
How to Create an Effective Blogging Strategy in 7 Easy Steps
A strong blog generates organic traffic, nurtures leads, and positions your brand as a thought leader. But it doesn’t happen overnight. A successful blogging strategy takes time, effort, and consistency. What’s more, it requires a fair bit of planning. Here are seven simple steps to help you build an effective blogging strategy that delivers real, lasting results.
1. Define Clear Objectives for Your Blog
Creating an effective blog content strategy starts with setting clearly defined goals.
Once established, your blog serves as a powerful multichannel tool. But, when you are just starting out, the key to delivering real results is to identify an initial core purpose for your blog —be it boosting lead generation, boosting brand awareness, or becoming the go-to knowledge hub for your audience.
Concentrating your content marketing efforts around clearly defined objectives can align your blog’s direction with your company’s business goals and growth objectives. If you take the time to document and define your strategy, you’ll achieve far more effective marketing results than if you go in blind.
2. Understand Your Target Audience
To plan around your business growth objectives, you need to understand your target audience. All the content in the world means nothing if it is targeting the wrong demographic.
Start by creating customer personas to ensure your content resonates with an audience that is in a position to either need or want your product/service. This is key to tailoring your strategy around crafting content that speaks to them.
Begin by researching your audience’s pain points and interests. Identify your target audience, how they spend their time, and any common questions or concerns they may have. Use these as the foundation for your content ideation and tailor your strategy around crafting content that speaks to them.
3. Develop a Content Calendar
Your buyer profiles should detail a few topics for blog content, but this is just the start. Research your competitor’s content strategies to reveal gaps and opportunities for future topics. Then, organize all of your topics into topical groups, identifying which stage of the buyer journey they target.
With this knowledge in hand, it is time to start crafting a content calendar. Focus on creating blog posts that educates, informs, or entertains your audience.
To increase the likelihood of conversions, try incorporating content suited for each stage of the buyer journey, but also concentrate on one topic group at a time. This will help you build topical authority and start ranking quicker.
A content calendar is a great way to map out these key topics, along with seasonal content and promotions. However, you should also incorporate key elements that will help your writer maintain your brand image, such as establishing a unique voice that resonates with its target audience.
Planning a consistent publishing schedule is key to maintaining engagement with your target audience and is the roadmap of your entire blogging strategy. It is important to take your time and clearly define each element before starting content creation.
4. Keyword Research and SEO Optimization
In your content calendar, leave space to include information for keyword research and SEO.
Once you have some ideas for topics planned out, it is important to conduct keyword research to identify and target high-value terms. These are search queries that yield high search volumes while maintaining a lower difficulty score for which your website has a realistic shot at ranking.
Use content marketing tools like SurferSEO, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to identify these keywords. While I use a combination of these tools, KeySearch is also a great option for those on a budget.
It is important to include this keyword research in your content calendar so that you or your writers can incorporate them into each blog, optimizing the post for SEO ((including keyword placement, internal linking, etc.)
When done right, you improve your chances of ranking on Google, maximizing your marketing potential.
5. Write Valuable, High-Quality Content
With your content calendar complete, it is time to get started on its execution.
Creating valuable, high-quality content isn’t easy. It needs to straddle the line between being optimized for search engines and being engaging to a real, human audience.
Engaging SEO writing is an art cultivated over time and experience and often requires a professional touch. Luckily, our content marketers are ready with effective copywriting services designed to get you noticed and bring your unique brand voice and tone to life.
6. Promote and Share Your Blog
A successful content strategy incorporates an outline for content promotion and distribution.
This is where blog content’s versatility is an advantage. Take some time to repurpose your content for different platforms to reach a broader audience. This way, you can use social media, email, and other channels to drive traffic to your blog.
Start by leveraging social media marketing to share blog posts on each of your social media platforms.
Social media marketing is crucial for content distribution, as it helps engage audiences and generate relationships through varied content formats. You can share the blog as is or break it down into small pieces for a series of social posts providing the most important information.
Be sure to include brief commentary and a link to the post to drive traffic back to your website.
7. Measure Performance and Refine strategy
When you put time and effort into creating a marketing blog, you want to make sure it is hitting its targets. This is why measuring its performance is a critical step for ongoing improvement.
Use content marketing tools, like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, to track blog performance. Analyze metrics like traffic, engagement, and conversion rates to identify areas of low performance and opportunities for improvement.
SEO is a dynamic practice. It is important to maintain a critical eye for constant changes and adjust your content strategy to match the most recent demands.
Complete Content Marketing Strategies That Work
Creating and maintaining a blog content marketing strategy is a long and tedious task. The worst part is that it takes a lot of trial and error if you don’t know what you are doing.
Save yourself the time and resources and work with a content marketing expert. At Kurt’sCopy, we tap into advanced content marketing techniques to identify industry trends and create content that speaks to your target audience.
With content marketing plans to meet a variety of budgets, we are a business-friendly agency focused on getting you results.
Send us a message today for a free consultation and learn how we can help you enhance brand awareness, nurture your leads, and drive conversions that meet your business goals.
Kurt Norris is the founder of Kurt’sCopy, where he helps B2B, e-commerce, SaaS, and local businesses craft compelling content and SEO strategies that deliver measurable results. With over six years of experience, Kurt specializes in creating data-driven campaigns that drive traffic, increase conversions, and establish brand authority.
