Top 5 Best Practices for Blogging

July 31, 2012 | By Ilfusion Team

Ilfusion’s Top 5 Best Practices for Blogging

It’s astonishing at times to notice that some companies, even large companies, may not have a blog. By and large, most companies can benefit greatly by blogging: you can reach your customers to give them information about your products or services, you can attract new business, and you can offer information that positions your business as the go-to place in your field.

Here are our blogging best practices:

1. Think About Your Audience

It’s easy for a company to constantly blog about company updates and what’s going on in the office, and that kind of content can be very fun, informative, and useful! However, you should think carefully about what your readers want. For example, as a staffing company you might also want to blog about business information for clients and job search tips for candidates. If you’re a business that reaches out to consumers, what kinds of things do your customers have in common? Are they interested in health? In movies? Think about content that you can create to capture those interests.

2. Write Consistently

It’s not enough to write a blog when you feel like it if that means you might only get one posted every few months. We recommend blogging at least every other week. Develop a calendar so that you can keep track of when you need to get writing. If you use a digital calendar, like Google Calendar, you can also set yourself a reminder for a day or two before, so that you have plenty of time! Also, be sure to write down any idea you have for a blog, even if it’s not time to write one yet. That way when you’re pressed for time and need to write a blog, you already know exactly what you’re going to write about!

3. Write, Write, Write…Rewrite, Rewrite, Rewrite!

Make sure to give yourself time to step away from your article for a while, and then come back to look at it later. You may notice errors or inconsistencies that you missed while you were in the writing process- it happens to everyone! Also, make sure you check manually for typos and errors as well as using the spell check…it’s easy to miss errors like using the wrong “there” or “your.”

4. Don’t Forget the Visuals

A big wall of text tends to put people off from wanting to read your content. First and foremost, make sure to break your blog up into logical paragraphs- you’ll be amazed at what a difference that can make! Then, start incorporating visuals. To find images that you can legally use on your blog, try visiting Stock Exchange or MorgueFile. And feel free to embed videos from YouTube when appropriate as well!

5. A Few Notes on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Keywords can be valuable for boosting your site’s rank in various search engines, so make sure you check Google’s keywords tool to see what the most-searched keywords are for the topic of your blog and incorporate them into the blog text where appropriate. That part is very important: Google is working constantly to try and keep people from being able to game their ranking system, so “keyword-stuffing” (when the proportion of keywords to non-keywords is high) can actually penalize your blog. Generally, it’s best to prioritize human readers over search engine robots when writing your blog, but it doesn’t hurt to know what phrases your audience is searching for, either.

Need help with your company’s blog? Contact us today and we’ll give you a hand!