There’s no time quite like the New Year to rededicate your energy to those things that fall by the wayside when you’re slammed. For many businesses, blogging is one of those things. If you aren’t blogging for your business, it’s time to get started! Check out our previous post on how to begin here.

Since its invention, blogging has boomed; From 1994 to 2005, 32 million Americans became blog readers. In the past two years alone internet users who read blogs have doubled, from 18% to 37%. This does not surprise us. What is surprising, is that in the past few years the average length of a blog post has increased dramatically, as people spend more time finding information and reading news online. In fact, in 2016 the blog posts that got the most views and the most shares on social media were those whose content ranged from 2,250 to 2,500 words, taking an average of 7 minutes to read. This shows us that people are interested in learning what you have to share with them!

So why not join the bandwagon?

The number one reason businesses don’t blog is because they feel like what they have to share won’t matter to anyone out there. However, considering there are more than 160 million blogs and 171 million blog subscribers and readers, there is a readership for any kind of content, including “trade-specific” content. As we’ve said before, targeting your customer is key in all forms of online marketing. By addressing your customer’s industry needs you are building a level of trust and authority in the equipment or trucking sphere, and competing with far fewer blogs than if you were to write about “lifestyle” content, for example.  

Unlike jogging, the effects of blogging compound even when you are doing it inconsistently. This means that the effort you put into one post might build results not only the day published but for months and years after! If only jogging once would produce a year’s worth of results! As Hubspot has discovered, “compounding blog posts make up 10% of all blog posts and generate 38% of overall traffic.” So, don’t weigh blog statistics very heavily short term, they likely will have a greater impact on your community long term!  

Here is our round-up of the top blogging trends you should try in 2017:

Infographics– infographics, and really any visual aids, make technical information much more digestible and visually appealing to read. For a post about seasonal equipment care, you might list out some facts and tips in an infographic, utilizing different colors and images to get this information noticed. Graphic design is intimidating for those who aren’t well-versed in adobe suite. However, we have found great success with the website canva.com, to put together images and text in a matter of a few minutes.

SEO management– utilizing these tools outside of your content writing will help drive traffic to your blog and boost your views and subscribers! Since there are so many blogs out there, tagging your posts properly in the back end of your portal- i.e. WordPress- is a cost-effective way to increase your blog’s popularity. For example, I have tagged this blog post with the following tags: blogging, blogging for your business, WordPress, guest blogging, corporate blogging, trade-specific blogging, content marketing, online marketing, and new year’s resolutions. This might seem tedious, but the more tags you add to your posts, the more potential they have to be found in a search.

Call to Action- We’ve talked about call-to-actions a lot, and it definitely applies to blogging! By adding an open ended question at the bottom of your posts, such as “what kind of equipment do you find most helpful this time of year?”, you are encouraging engagement rather than passive viewing– which we know is much more valuable long term.

Guest Blogging- As bloggers have been termed “influencers”, their voices have held more weight. You no doubt have many influencers within your company, who could write a post about their area of influence. For example, your customer service manager could write about how to deal with varying customer situations, or your sales manager could share their expertise on seasonal sales techniques. The first step is just to ask! They’re sure to be flattered.

Repeat after me…

We will start blogging (again).

We will create a calendar for posting on my blog, and stick to it.

We will ask a coworker or business partner to write a “guest post” for my blog.

We will experiment with graphic design, trying our hand at infographics to feature technical information.

We will add CTA’s to our posts, encouraging readers to contribute their thoughts.

Don’t waste any more time. Ready, set, BLOG!

If you have any questions about blogging or still don’t know where to start, email us at marketing@commercialwebservices.com or comment below. We’d love to help get you started or rework your current content for blogging!