Why do you need a Blog?
We’ve heard it over and over again- Content is King! So, in 2020 if you are starting a business, you have got to create high quality content and put that content out there for people to consume.
Yes, there is Instagram and Facebook that seems more obvious and easy to put snippets of your content, but if you want to show your Expertise and Authority, Educate your followers, do a Comparison study- you’ve got to create a long form of content- be it in the form of video or writing. And this is where blogging for business comes in the picture.
A blog post sits on top of your sale funnel- this is where your readers become aware of your product, your story, your motivation, and build trust with you and your brand. This is also a place where you can give away your freebies by asking your visitors to subscribe to your email list.
How to create content that people want to read?
Where do you start with content? What should you start writing about? How do you ensure you’re putting out high quality content that people are actually looking for? A lot of people ask- What should I write about when so many blogs are created everyday that never see the light of the day. Here are 3 easy ways you can find out what people are interested in-
- Check what other businesses in your niche are talking about- check their blogs, their podcast episodes, you don’t have to copy them, but you can get inspired with their content for your next post.
- Join Facebook groups and pay attention to what questions other members are asking.
- Type a word in the google search bar and let google autocomplete suggestions.
And viola! Just like that you have discovered a topic that people are interested in learning more about- which can become your content for your next blog post.
What is the Best Free Blogging platform for beginners?
Have you heard of blogger.com? No? Don’t blame you! When I wrote my first blog long time ago in 2005, I proudly wrote it on blogger.com- google’s own blogging site. But 15 years later, we have more options. So, we’ll discuss two of my favourite blogging sites-
Blogging with WordPress is the most common and easy way to get started with blogging for free. It’s a great tool to dip your toes in the world of blogging- with easily customizable templates.
So go to WordPress.com, sign up, select a template and you can get pretty much start writing off your first post. If you have a custom domain, (say mine was myblogginglife.com), you can put this in here so your site becomes www.myblogginglife.com instead of www.wordpress.com/blogginglifexyz54321.com
WordPress also has innumerable great plugins you can install when you upgrade to their paid plans. But, to create a basic functioning blog, without bells and whistles, you are good to go with the free wordpress version by just signing up.
If you’re looking for something even more simple and basic, with no templates to worry about customizing, Medium is your baby. Medium looks like a big magazine that you are a contributor to, so everybody’s content looks the same. You can sign up to Medium with your Google or Facebook account and immediately creating your first blog that they call Story. So, to write a new post, you simply click on New Story. You can also import your blogpost that you’ve written in another platform into Medium.
How do you get people to see your content?
The big monstrous term you’ll come across in blogging world is SEO- Search Engine Optimisation. Everyday, millions of people put out content- so how does a particular content show up on your google search? Cause their content is optimised and google decides they should be on the google search’s front page.
The very basic you can do to optimise your page is use specific keywords related to the term you’re blogging about. I use Neil Patel’s tool, Ubersuggest that’s super user friendly to search for relevant keywords on the topic I’m writing about.
There’s many other things you have to do for optimisation so that google can read your page. But I feel you should not let the this one (yes important) feature stop you from writing. It’s something you can learn as you go, implement, change and implement again. You need to have a post first that you can apply SEO on. Share this post on your social media-get real feedback and then take a dive into SEO, and edit your blog as you learn about things to do on SEO.
Check out blog posts by the guru of SEO, Neil Patel. His posts will give you an in depth knowledge of how SEOs work. Again, learn, implement, repeat.
