The basics of blogging for companies looking to begin a corporate blog

Blog writing is a skill, which is different to simply writing content. It involves a combination of elements such as SEO as well as demonstrating thought leadership within your industry. They must be structured properly and provide an engaging read which invites readers to want to get in touch to know more about your company and what you have to offer. So if you’ve never done corporate blogging before, here are some basics to help you begin:

Create a clear structure

Every blog should follow a standard structure to help the audience receive the information as clearly as possible. This is made up of heading, introduction paragraph and a series of subheadings with subsequent paragraphs. There should always be at least a short conclusion at the end, with a call to action, whether this is to get in touch or a link to more information. This structure will guide your readers through the content.

Keywords for SEO

SEO is part of blogging too. It’s important to incorporate keywords into both the paragraph text and the header tags of each blog – this will increase your ranking in Google, as well as helping you to use industry related keywords where applicable. This must always be natural as part of the content, and not unusual phrases thrown in for the sake of SEO, because the quality of your content should not be compromised.

Appealing to your target audience

Who is your target audience? How you write your blog and what you include will vary depending on your target demographic. If you’re targeting customers looking to buy your products, it’s wise to use clear language but not necessarily technical industry jargon. On the other hand if you’re targeting within your industry, perhaps a B2B market, you can be more flexible with using the correct terminology and expecting a greater understanding from your audience. Again, the tone you use will be different – most blogs will be informative but have an informal tone, but there will of course be exceptions where a highly formal approach will be more appropriate.

The balance of how much to write

Typically a blog will have an optimum length of 500-750 words. This may be less if your blog post is related to a news piece or something which doesn’t need to be explored in depth, but generally content will be rich and informative at around 500 words. It’s also important not to make it too long, since this can reduce engagement. Less really is more in this case!

Share other related content

If you have previously written other content that explains more about an element of your blog topic, or want to refer your readers to a certain place on your website, you can invite them to click onto different links. Linking will also increase your SEO, but always make sure to use a rel=”nofollow” tag if you’re linking to an external source.

Getting started with your blog

We recommend that most companies produce 4 pieces of content, or blogs, on a monthly basis at the very least. This averages out to roughly one post per week, which gives you a consistent stream of engaging content to share with your audience without overwhelming them with a huge amount of information.

For more advice getting started with your company blog, check out our 5 ways to demonstrate thought leadership through your company blog, or give me a call today on 020 7100 0726.