Blog content is important for driving traffic to your site to ultimately drive commerce for your business. But what are you writing about? What’s your voice?
Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re even blogging in the first place.
Searchable Blog Content
Let me tell you a story…
Among our first big contracts was with a pretty well known real estate agency in the New York City area. When we landed the contract, I was happy to work with them and looking forward to driving their organic traffic.
When they wanted me to work out of the office on a semi-regular basis, I thought it unorthodox. They even assigned me a title; “Content Strategist.” This legitimized how unusual this entire experience was…to a degree.
Updating the title tags and meta descriptions was out of the question. Then I was restricted from Analytics access. How would I prove how effective my content was? Track any KPIs or implement goals and adjust my approach for audience behavior? Or deploy my trusty bot filters to eliminate spam?
This was beyond unorthodox and decidedly the first red flag this marketing department had no idea what internet marketing was. But I wasn’t the CMO and had no say on how this isn’t how to do this. I was but a lowly contractor limited to blog content, daily Twitter “updates” (also done incorrectly) and proofreading… typically reserved for college interns, not 30-somethings with years of experience running a marketing agency.
Target YOUR Audience
So as the contract wore on, I fulfilled my client’s requests (not needs), toiling away on shoddy blogging. This blog content discussed brunch, theatre, small business… pretty much anything aside from real estate. This was then posted to an obscure Tumblr blog page. Nothing against Tumblr, but it serves a distinct purpose.
Without getting into too much detail, an open blogging platform isn’t the purpose Tumblr serves. Even if this closed source “blog content” was effective for driving traffic, it wasn’t even linked to the home landing page. As far as I could gather, the only purpose this “CMO” wanted for this “blog page” was his own reading. It was nothing more than a reference library on any topic other than real estate.
Needless to say, for my own sanity, I opted out of renewing the contract with this client.
Regardless, in place of blogging anything other than real estate this client should have been blogging objectively and exclusively about real estate. This is the only way to target search engine traffic with blog content, regardless of your target audience.
Blog Content: Industry News, Not Product Launches
Another client of ours was targeting the 3D printing space with their additive manufacturing software.
Aside from insisting on building their website on a very low level .co domain, they insisted on using one of those out of the box website providers. These are very restrictive and not easy to manipulate for either design or searchability. Also we weren’t allowed Analytics access (what’s with these people?). So this contract was off to a bad start.
When we would present objective topics for their blog content, these were quickly shutdown. Instead they would ask why we aren’t plugging their new software add-ons, such as “blockchain security” or their “advice” series. They countered us at every turn with their own ideas whenever we would explain this would do nothing to drive useful traffic.
In place of blogging about their own subjective software products, this client should have been blogging objectively and exclusively about additive manufacturing software. This is the only way to target search engine traffic with blog content, regardless of your target audience.
You do Your Job, We’ll do Our’s
It was Steve Jobs who said “it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” So if you’re overseeing any professionals running your marketing operations- and they have a resume proving their worth- it’s fine to remain ignorant of how internet marketing works. But don’t interfere with those who do know what they’re doing.
You wouldn’t walk into a delivery room and tell a doctor how to deliver a baby. You wouldn’t walk into the NASA control room and start giving orders on how to launch a rocket. So why do you think you have any knowledge on blog content marketing with no background? It’s a waste of your money, your time and their time to hire a content marketing agency then tell them how to do things. And in addition to letting them do their work, allow them to use the right tools, such as WordPress and Anaytics.
Blog content is an important component to your SEO. When it comes to running your SEO, focus on objectivity, use industry keywords and keyword phrases, and post your blogs to ultimately drive site traffic and business. And do it consistently. That’s it. Or better, yet, leave it to the marketing agency experts.