In today’s digital age, a business must have a strong online presence. From a mobile-friendly website to optimized social media channels, your business must be visible, current, and educate your visitors.

One great digital marketing strategy is to blog. Companies who blog generate 67 percent more leads each month compared to companies that are not blogging.

Are you ready to start blogging? Here are some tips for getting started.

What is a blog?

A company’s blog is a content publishing channel that is affiliated with your business. The blog can live on your website or on an entirely different website. We recommend having your blog live on your company website as this will aid in increase SEO (search engine optimization) for your website.

Blogging is one of the most powerful tools that a company can use to grow their brand.

A blog offers your company a new way to communicate with customers, potential customers, vendors and even journalists.

You control the content of the blog, when you publish, and what the format will be. A blog is a marketing channel completely controlled by your company.

Know your audience

Before you start you blog, you need to know who you are speaking to. Take time to consider the audience you want to attract.

You can look at your current client base and write for that audience. Or you can look at a competitor’s blog or an industry leader’s blog to see the type of content they are posting and determine what audience would care about these topics.

You can create an audience persona from this information and start to write content that would interest your target audience.

Include a call-to-action

What action do you want your readers to take? Your blog should have a purpose. Every blog post should have a call-to-action.

You obviously want your audience to read your blog post. But what is their next step? Do you want to build an email list? If so, include an opt-in form on your blog page. Do you want to increase engagement with your brand, then include social media buttons on your blog page so readers can ‘Like’ your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter.

How are you going to keep them coming back?

A great blog is one that keeps readers wanting to come back for more. To do this, you must create high-quality content, post on a regular basis, and educate your readers.

There is an 80/20 rule for blogging. 80 percent of your content should be educational or entertaining. The remaining 20 percent can be company-centric content.

Your blog should not only be about your company and your products. You can use your blog to post about new employees, write about happy customers (think case studies), or write about an event you will be participating in or hosting.

Your company blog should post about what is happening in your industry. Stay current by reading industry publications and blogs. Share your thoughts about these article with your readers.

Educating your readers and giving them valuable information will keep them coming back to read more.

Blogging is time-consuming but definitely worth it. Set a schedule to post and adhere to it. Your readers will appreciate returning to your blog page and seeing a new post.