Lead generation blogging, is essential for start up business’ eager to create new business opportunities via their website. Expecting web surfers to find and actively request your services is unlikely. Lead generation blogging, is a lead generation strategy that allows people to find you and incentivises them to provide their details to provide future business opportunities.
For many the business’ the prospect of blogging can seem like a thankless task, especially when starting up.
“where are the pounds or dollars in the bank account that justify such an investment of time in writing content for my website?” you are probably asking.
It’s a fair question, but lead generation blogging is not a tactic that is designed to make quick cash.
Instead it’s a basis in which your can build strong foundation roots and credibility for your start up that provide a path to longer term business goals.
Lead generation blogging demands a regular commitment to quality writing, focused on topics specific to your business niche that will drive traffic to your website.
Here is how it works.
Lead Generation Blogging
1. Be Clear on Start Up Business Goals
We have already determined that the end goal is to achieve more sales opportunities as a result of lead generation blogging, but we can be more effective if we gain complete clarity on who we want to sell to, where we want to sell it and what it is we want to sell.
Quality content marketing requires significant investment in time so it is important to be totally clear in order to create blog posts that create the best opportunity to achieve these ambitions.
As a start-up business it is likely you have limited time, so make every word count.
2. Create a blogging schedule based around your business goals
The challenge ahead
- For an effective blogging strategy start-ups should identify 30-50 articles to publish on their site.
- The blogging articles should be based on specific keywords the target customers are actually searching for.
- The articles should be published once a week, to encourage Google to continue to index the business’ website positively in its search results.
Identify several keywords as a foundation
These keywords should be the generic variation, rather than those associated with the brand or the business.
The business needs to assume the individual won’t know the companies products, and it is highly like the customer is already ranking well for the search terms specifically associated with their brand/business.
As an example lets consider a construction supplies business. They want to sell more of their products via their direct to installer website. “Buy construction products” or “cheap construction products” would be two obvious key word examples.
If the business goal is to sell a specific type of product then search terms such as “cheap insulation products”, “best insulation products” or “buy insulation products” are common. A specific product type is recommended as it identifies what the customer actually wants to purchase: insulation.
The business may want to delve even deeper into the category focusing on “best floor insulation products” or “buy roof insulation proof products”. As we drill deeper into the keywords, we create better sales opportunities by meeting the needs of our customers more specifically.
Phrases such as “how to insulate a roof” can be an even more effective keyword strategy. These search terms focus on providing educational content to site visitors, instead of selling directly. Business’ are more likely to get clicks to their website, enhance lead capture and sales opportunities with this approach
Reaching the target number of blog articles
Using a keyword research tool such as Keywords Everywhere or Google Adwords Keyword search, we can take the foundation keywords and identify more keywords to use as the focus of each our articles.
These tools will take search terms such as “how to insulate a roof” and create a list of other similar phrases that are frequently searched and perfectly suited for keywords for your blog articles.
3. Write compelling content
Now we have our schedule of articles, the next challenge is to create content that our audience actually wants to read.
For content with maximum impact, there are 3 types of content I find most effective:
- How-to resource articles – blog posts that educate people on how to do something. Using the insulation example this type of post would work well for audiences searching for “how to insulate a ground floor”. By producing a Search Engine Optimised article for this phrase we can enhance the potential to reach this audience.
- Information articles – Educate your audience about insulation “10 reasons why insulating your home will save you hundreds of pounds every year”.
- Ask a question articles – Create uncertainty and curiosity by creating blog posts that question your audience. “Is your Roof Insulation up to Building Regulations?“
These types of articles are most effective as they can be considered as ever green content that is able to withstand the test of time and be of value to the reader beyond a short time frame. In contrast company related posts have a much shorter shelf life.
The content within these blog articles needs to be high quality to increase the likelihood of search engines indexing them well in search, achieving re-shares on social media and generating back links to your content. All essential features of search engine optimisation (SEO).
The best blog post content will include a minimum of 300 words, but ideally 900 words to be considered of significant value to search engines. Inclusion of video, images, infographics and links to out sources are further signals to Google and readers that the content is a beneficial resource.
4. Create an incentive
An incentive encourages viewers of your blog post to subscribe to your blog and is an essential lead generation blogging mechanism. Create an e-book or free guide, or substantial money off or freebie incentive to persuade them to provide you with an email address for future communication.
5. Time based lead capture on the blog post
To capture your visitors details when they visit your website, a time based lead capture such as HelloBar should appear after the viewer has been viewing the blog post for a period of time. To enhance the likelihood of capturing the lead, promote your incentive here.
This is where your lead generation blogging efforts are rewarded as the post is providing you with further opportunities to following up with additional communications.
6. Publish and share content extensively
To maximise the reward for your lead generation blogging efforts, publish and share your articles across all of your social medial accounts, as soon as you publish it via your website and for extended periods after the initial website posting.
Use social media automation tools to continuously recycle content effortlessly through these channels and increase the potential for your content to be shared, liked and viewed by potential new customers.
Revitalise blog posts with new images and subject lines on social media, and adopt compelling subject lines that give your content new identify with minimal additional work.
7. Reminder to Google
In amongst all this lead generation blogging activity its easy to forget to notify Google of your recent post. Submit the url via Google’s search console immediately to encourage the search engine to index your new post as soon as possible.
8. Email existing customers
If you have an existing email database make the effort to email them about your recent post, to increase views and increase lead generation opportunities. As a subscriber, they may be incentivised to promote your articles themselves opening channels to a wider audience.
You may run a weekly email newsletter for your start up or business, which provides another opportunity to promote various articles to a captive audience.
9. Back Links through Lead Generation Blogging
By creating great blog content, and sharing it extensively to new and existing audiences start ups can increase the opportunity for other websites to link back into your website.
This is a major SEO factor, by receiving more backlinks to your content your Page Rank will improve enhancing the potential for your content to receive better search rankings.
Better search ranking, enables more people to find you start up or business allowing you to generate new business leads as a result of your original blogging efforts.
Lead Generation Blogging Rewards
The steps taken here are not simple, they are essential. But the rewards associated with lead generation blogging can be a hugely effective use of time for start up and existing business’ who have a long term vision for their business. Great blog posts can provide a continuous influx of traffic to your website and generation of highly valuable leads. Get in touch for further advice on your lead generation blogging efforts.
