How to Use Blogging for Marketing (5 Tips to Get Started)

If you have a business, you probably also have a website – the big struggle many have is, however, how to then get relevant visitors to their website the most effective way.

There are many ways to get traffic through marketing – but a method that is often overlooked or used the wrong way is blogging.

This often comes down to misunderstandings about how blogging is used strategically and effectively – if it is not done this way, it will not give results.

In this article, I will, therefore, show you how to use blogging for marketing so it actually can give you long-term results and help your business grow.

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How good results can you get through blogging?

In my experience, businesses often overlook how good results blogging can give you if you use it correctly.

It can have many benefits.

It can be a great way to brand yourself, you can engage with your potential audiences, and most importantly, you can make sure people find YOU when they are looking for the services you sell.

With the right effort, it is entirely possible to make a living just from blogging, but even if that is not your goal, it is something you should definitely consider using if you have a website.

Over time it can bring a flood of visitors to your website every day and the more visitors you have, the more chances you have of capturing leads.

The great thing about blogging is that once it takes off, it will just continue bringing results and bringing in visitors to your website 24/7.

But before getting to some tips about how to use blogging the most effective way, let’s first go over something you should definitely avoid if you want to use blogging.

How NOT to use blogging?

I just wanted to include this section here as I often see companies making this big error when they use a blog.

They think it is just a place to write a bit about how they feel/think or a few news about the company.

A blog section can definitely be used for this and it can be great depending on the goal and the company.

But blogging is so much more than this and it does not at all give the results you can get if you use blogging strategically.

So let’s now go over some tips about how to get started with a more effective approach.

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5 Tips to use blogging effectively

Blogging is a science in itself and there are many things to consider.

But it does not have to be difficult to get started and most importantly, you do not have to be a professional writer to get started.

As long as you have something to share, you can start blogging. But it needs to be done strategically to give results as already mentioned.

So here are 5 tips you should implement to get good long-term results with blogging.

Tip 1: Find relevant keywords

Before you start blogging, it is important you know what topics related to your business, people are looking for online.

This will help you create content people are actually interested in and by providing good quality content about this, you can build your brand and your traffic.

This is, therefore, an important first step.

There are many ways to do keyword research and that could be an entire book on its own. And if you are serious about blogging, I encourage you to learn this in-depth.

But for a start, it can also be as simple as just knowing your audience and knowing what questions they often ask you about and then creating content around this.

Or using Google’s autocomplete function as that gives you a good indication of what people are searching for.

So it does not have to be complicated to get started.

Tip 2: Optimize for search engines

The real power of blogging comes if you are able to get rankings in the search engines.

Eventually, this will be able to bring you a flood of traffic every hour 24/7.

A good place to start is by making sure you SEO optimize your content. That is the foundation of good results.

In addition to that, the next steps will help you rank over time and potentially get really good results.

Tip 3: Promote your content

There is no need to only rely on the search engines to be found.

If you already have an audience either through social media, newsletter, or anything else, it is a good idea to promote your content to them.

Just remember the point of this is not to sell. It is to provide value to your audience. Then the sale will come automatically when they need your service.

This is a great way to build trust and to build your brand. And this is important for long-term results.

If you do not yet have an audience you can promote to, do not let that stop you.

Just start slowly while you are building and focus on providing value even if you only have a tiny audience. Then it will grow over time and so will your business.

Tip 4: Be consistent

Blogging is not a one-time thing and this is important to be aware of.

It takes consistent effort and regular blogging to get results. You will not just rank high in the search engines just by publishing one article.

You need to earn the trust to rank at the top and this takes consistency. And people will also not necessarily trust you just because you have written one great blog.

So see blogging as a part of growing your business and do it consistently. How often you should blog is very difficult to say as it depends on your line of business and the competition in it.

But there is no such thing as blogging too much as long as you do it with the quality so publish a blog as often as you have the resources to do so.

Tip 5: Be patient

This tip is closely related to the tip above and an aspect I very often see people underestimate.

Blogging can give really amazing results through ranking in the search engines – but it will not happen overnight.

It is difficult to give any specific answer for how long it will take to see results as it depends on so many things. For example, the competition in your niche, how good the quality of your blogs is, how often do you blog, how good are you at finding the right topics to blog about, and more.

But as a general rule, if you work seriously with blogging and ranking in the search engines, you should not expect any significant results for at least the first 3 months or so if you are starting from scratch.

For many, it will take longer and for some, it will happen faster. But overall, if you decide to use blogging as a marketing and want to rank in the search engines, you should plan to do it long-term.

At first, you just build the foundation and it can take a lot of patience.

In fact, I have seen many people give up blogging just before they would probably have started getting success simply because they were too impatient.

So be patient and be willing to put in the continuous effort – then blogging can be an amazing way to grow your business.

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Final thoughts

Using blogging for marketing can give really great long-term results.

It takes effort and time before you will see the results but when they come, they can keep growing.

It is luckily not difficult to get started and if you are patient and willing to work for it, it is something anyone can do.

Use the tips in the article above to get started and then you will already have a great foundation to build on.

I hope this article has helped you decide if blogging is a great option for you or not and if you feel inspired, I hope you will get started right away so it can help you grow your business.

 

About the author:
Mikael Moeller has worked with online marketing for years and has now created his own business and income by blogging in various niches.

He is, among others, the owner of the website OnlineZeroToHero.com where he shares his experience about creating an online business with others.