Best Blogging Strategies for Startups from We Blog Better

Posted: 30 Jan 2014 09:00 PM PST

For startups, a blog provides a great way to generate public interest in their products or services. Many startups exist on a month-to-month and even day-to-day basis, waiting on an investor or a round of funding before proceeding with the next step in their business plan. As a result, high-paid marketing campaigns are not an ideal solution for these cash-strapped upstarts. Instead, new businesses can market their brand at little to no cost through blogging.

While paying high rates for effectively targeted advertising in traditional media may result in quicker, widespread impact, company blogs provide a number of recognizable benefits, including more visitor engagement and an increased amount of leads. Hubspot found blogging to be the top method for increasing traffic, just ahead of SEO. By using the blogging ideas below, startups can use their blogging to raise awareness for their brand and services:

Tailor How-to Guides and Tutorials to a Relevant Niche

There are many people each day who begin their search engine query with "How do I" or "How to." They are looking for instructions to do something, which is where savvy bloggers come into play. These types of blog posts are very popular because they provide the reader with a sense of empowerment and possibility.

Keep the tutorial within your company's niche, so the blog traffic is more likely to result in leads. For example, if your company specializes in selling baseball bats, creating a tutorial like "How do I powerfully hit a baseball?" will attract baseball players to your site, a ripe audience for leads in your specific niche.

Update Readers on Industry News and Developments

It's always a good sign when an upstart is up-to-date with the trends in their specific industry. By showing readers via a blog that your business is familiar with the industry's modern advancements and strategies, the business is perceived as sleeker and more desirable to potential leads. This establishes thought leadership, thrusting the business into a more positive light for most visitors. Analyzing recent industry news, as opposed to just re-posting it, is also an effective strategy to show readers a business has a genuine passion for their work.

Personalize the Startup

A startup's web site should detail the business' history and services, but the blog is a great place for employees of the startup to show themselves as more than a cog in the machine. Employees should be encouraged to write blog posts relevant to the industry, or even the office itself. Occasional fun posts detailing an office holiday party or a playful prank on another employee provides a more personalized and fun-loving perception of the business. Just be sure to make sure these types of posts are typically overshadowed by more industry-relevant material and tutorials.

For example, on the blog of WebpageFX – a company focusing on web development and internet marketing – they share eCommerce tips, while also providing holiday’s greetings to readers. It’s the fine balance between industry relevance and fun personalization that makes the blog so readable.

Answer Questions From Interested Visitors

Many startups receive a significant amount of questions from interested visitors, who stumble upon their site either via search engines, word-of-mouth or marketing. Creating a handful of blog posts devoted specifically to answering these types of questions – from the commonly asked to more obscure – is a great way to satisfy visitors to the blog, in addition to providing more keyword options for search engines to crawl. This is especially useful for questions that begin with "What is…," since these types of queries are common search engine queries.

Regardless of the type of startup, a blog provides an effective low-cost way to increase leads an interest in a brand. Develop your blogging marketing plan around how-to guides, industry news/analysis, personalization and Q&As. This type of content increases the likelihood that a company-oriented blog will pique readers' interests, in both the industry and business at hand.

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