How to Prepare Content for Your Blogposts
In the last post, I gave you 7 exceptionally good reasons why you definitely need a blog on your website. It is a seriously essential marketing strategy that you need to be doing at least once a week, if not more. Here are 4 more content creation tips to take the stress out.
1. Brainstorm topics
- Look at competitor's sites – even sites in other countries – and see what they’re blogging about
- Use the Google Alerts tool to receive emails about trending topics in your industry
- When you’re communicating with customers face to face, by phone, by email, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, Google Plus or Twitter – jot down all the questions they ask. Chances are other people will want to know these answers too
- Take photos of issues and problems you see (related to your business) when you’re out and about
- Prepare case studies of issues your clients had and how you solved them
What you’re doing is effectively becoming a journalist. All of a sudden you’ll find you’re more alert and aware of what people are interested in once you open up your mind to what’s going on around you and look at it from a “reporter” perspective.
Your customers are not only looking for information about you and your services – they want to see how much you know. Now some topics might seem obvious to you – but to others that information can be revolutionary.
2. Gather topic information
The old-fashioned way was to write notes, cut out press clippings and put them in a folder. The modern way is to use a tool like Evernote to store your notes in online notebooks (folders), add photos to these notebooks, and clip website articles or video links you come across that have interesting ideas and commentary.
It’s a seriously brilliant way to store masses of information – and you can sync it across all your devices, so if you see something interesting when you’re out and about – take a photo and add it to Evernote using their mobile app.
You can even share notebooks with others in your team so you can have them amassing ideas for you too!
Then when you’re ready – open the notebook on a topic idea and start pulling it all together.
Evernote is a fantastic free resource for collating info
3. Plan your posts
We provide our clients with a very useful planning template that helps you map out when, who, what and why. So the third step is to create a plan for the next month (more if you can) and decide on the topics.
Once you’ve decided on the topic for each post – then you add
- some bullet points about the key issues you want to cover,
- supporting images, videos or links
- a call to action
- date to be published
- who will write and who will edit
You now have a solid framework of ideas and an action plan to follow.
4. Examples of Topics
Your customers are not only looking for information about you and your services – they want to see how much you know. Now some topics might seem obvious to you – but to others that information can be revolutionary.
- Plumber – what to do if you have a leaky shower
- Electrician – what to do if you’ve blown a fuse
- Landscaper – How to cope with shady areas in your garden
- Builder – When to use nails and when to use screws
- Travel Agent – Is Travel Insurance worth it?
- Accountant – 3 things you can’t claim on your tax return
- Hairdresser – How to wash your hair properly
- Image Consultant – 5 things to consider when choosing jewelery
- Carpet Store – Nylon vs Wool vs Blends
These are all questions that people have for these niches.
Of course, if even this seems too hard or you seriously don’t have the time, resources or skills to contemplate doing this – we can help. We have a team of writers who prepare regular blog posts for our clients. Give us a call on 1300 554 495 or shoot us an email and we’ll be delighted to help you out.
Next in this series – How to Make Your Blogposts go Viral.
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