How to Start a Digital Marketing Blog

That could be rhetorical, as I sit here preparing to write the first blog post for our newly created growth hack marketing agency. The pressure is on, as I know how important a good blog is for a digital marketing agency, growth marketing agency, or any type business for that matter.

The good news is.. it’s really easy to get started.

What is a blog?

Type the question “What is a blog?” into Google. And Wikipedia gives the following answer:

Wikipedia: A blog (a truncation of “weblog”) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web. Consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries/posts.

Businesses, including digital marketing agencies, will likely incorporate a blog into their main website. As marketers, it is vital to stay abreast of any new trends emerging in the digital market place. A blog is an excellent vehicle to communicate to your customers that you are ahead of the curve. As a result, you will reassure them, you have your finger on the pulse of all things digital.

If you are simply someone who is passionate about all things digital and want to start blogging about it, I suggest the place to start is with a good name.

Your name will also be your url and domain name. You can purchase these from a number of different domain name registrars, such as GoDaddy, Domain.com, Bluehost or Namecheap. If you are really serious about your blogging, you probably want to choose a paid platform to host your blog as it will look more professional. As you are presenting yourself as a digital marketing expert, it is important your website looks the part. However, if you’re on a tight budget, there are good free content management systems (CMS) out there, such as WordPress.org or Wix. If you’re looking for something a little more bespoke, then WordPress.com, may suit you better.

In a Nutshell, what makes a good Blog?

In short, a good blog should provide regular content, which is relevant to your audience and customers. A good headline is key. It should be attention grabbing, and also convey what is in the main body of the blog. Rather than being simply informational, a good blog post can encourage some type of interaction with the author. Large blocks of text can be overwhelming and look boring and put readers off. Remember to break up your text with images and videos. It definitely makes each post much more engaging. Infographics can also greatly enhance a post and make it instantly more appealing to the reader.

Link Building

How you use links in your posts will depend on whether your ultimate goal is to market your business or yourself. Or whether your blog is more personal commentary. Clever use of links can help improve the SEO of your blog and/or website. In addition, internal linking can improve the overall experience for the reader and introduce them to other, linked topics.

Reverse Order

Remember when you are planning your posts, that your posts are posted in reverse order. This might influence the order you post in, so worth doing a little bit of planning. It is also perfectly acceptable to repost, or to add to and update a post. This is particularly useful, if something should come up in the media, or be a discussion point for whatever reason. The post will move to the top of the order. And don’t forget to repost on social media too. This will really help you to get the most traction from all your hard work.

Create a Structure

There is no set template or ideal layout for a blog. It might just help you though, when time is tight, to have a structure to stick to. Using headers to break up your text, as well as complementing it with images, is key. There are various royalty free websites out there with lots of great images to add interest to your blogs. Unsplash offers some great, free images.

What should I blog about?

Clearly, if you are presenting yourself as a digital marketing expert, you need to know your subject. Is there a particular category of digital marketing that interests you most? Is it SEO (search engine optimisation), Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing or Marketing Analytics? It can be helpful to focus on one aspect and make this your “niche”. However, as with most things, you will communicate and write better about what interests you most. In other words, if you’re interested in all of it, then blog away…

In addition, building up your digital marketing network can really help your blog. Follow other digital marketing experts on social media. Find out what other marketers are talking about and get stuck in. Follow the trade press: Campaign, Marketing Week, M&M Global, Figaro Digital Magazine, Digital Marketing Magazine. There are some great blogs out there to take inspiration from. Do a bit of digging yourself, but we love Moz, Hubspot and Social Media Today.

Cover all your products and services:

If you are a digital marketing agency, then it makes sense for all your services and products to be covered in the topics you blog about. This will give you the chance to dig a a little deeper when describing what a service entails. It also gives you the chance to cover aspects such as background and opinion, which may be of interest to your readers. Again, you are adding value and giving your readers, that little bit more.

We all know that blogging is very beneficial for your SEO. And let’s be honest, we’re all trying to market something. For example, some of you may be trying to appeal to employers, or attract clients to your business or visitors to your website. It is important though, not to become too cynical and constantly be selling your services. Hence, sometimes is important to simply add value. Blog about things that are helpful and interesting.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Writing a blog just to improve your ranking on search engines, will never work unless your content is worth reading. We have said it above, you need to add value and create loyalty and generate interest and you won’t do this unless your topics are interesting to the reader. Having said that, a blog is an excellent way to improve your SEO, for yourself or your business. In other words it can help to drive visitors to your website organically.

Do your keyword research. If you can incorporate keywords and long tail keywords into your posts, this will improve your SEO and your search engine rankings. After all, even if you are not writing a blog for marketing purposes, you still want people to be able to find you. There are plenty of SEO tools, that can help you with your research.

If you focus on several long tail keywords in your posts this can draw in a focused audience and you can tailor your posts to exactly what your audience wants to read. A long tail keyword is a phrase of up to around 5 words, and is a more effective use of keywords than trying to compete with more generic terms such as SEO, digital marketing, growth hacking, marketing etc. Include your long tail keywords in the body of your blog, the header, the page URL, the title tag and the meta description. Don’t make SEO the only purpose of your digital marketing blog, but do optimise your blog posts, so your ideal audience can find you.

Blogging to Drive Customers to your Website

Content creation is a great way to drive customers to your website. If you are a digital marketing agency, then a blog is a very useful tool to promote your company. It can offer real value for your clients and would be customers. In order to attract the right people to your blog and business, it is important to really understand your customer’s persona. Who is it you are trying to attract? Who is interested in what you are selling? In order to establish who your customer is, dig deep in terms of their age, geography, demographic. What they are interested in? As a digital marketing agency are you targeting a specific type of business or company? Do their interests and hobbies influence their behaviour when choosing a business to work with? This bit of research should influence your blogging. And the topics you choose to write about.

Using Social Media to drive Customers to your Blog and Website

Once your blog is established and you have created a decent amount of content you can start looking at how you can use it to drive customers to your website or digital marketing blog. Having a great blog is one thing, but you also want people to be able to find you and read your brilliant pieces. How to build an audience on social media is a different post and for another day. For the purposes of this post, we assume you have a decent following and posting your blogs across all the platforms you’re active on, is your next step. Make sure you have all necessary links on your posts.

Encourage people to share. This will keep your posts active for longer and make them really work for you.

Another point to remember when sharing posts with links to your blogs, is to post when your audience is online. Spend a little bit of time to work out when they are most active, and this will pay dividends in the long run. People are more likely to share when they are active and engaged!

Remember your etiquette when posting your blogs on social media. If anyone asks a question, or comments on your post, then be polite and respond. This will pay off and ensure they click through to your next digital marketing blog post.

Things to remember.

• Quality is always more important than quantity. Don’t become obsessed with posting regularly if the content isn’t up to scratch. Much better to have one decent length post of 1500 words, which readers want to share.
• Don’t lose sight of your objectives. Remember why you started the blog in the first place.
• A blog is an excellent place to promote your clients (if you have them). Share their stories.
• Include videos and images and break up the text.
• Share all your blog posts on social media to get it out there.
• Through your network and extensive reading, work out what questions people really want answers to and make it your job to answer them.
• A blog is really a journal, so write like you speak. Don’t make the blog too formal.
• Your personality should come through in the post. It should sound authentic. Often the topics we write about are ones which have been written about before, so try and make your post a little bit different from every other digital marketing blog out there.
• Depending on the purpose of your blog, remember to include calls to action. Don’t be too “salesy”, but do make life as easy as possible for your customers. They may just need a little nudge to take them over the line.

Lastly, a small tip..

Google Keyword Planner is a great free resource to work out what people are searching for.

We understand that you may have every intention of creating a brilliant blog, which is relevant and engaging, but just don’t have the time to dedicate to it. We can help. Veksa offers a Blog Growth Package; just register for this package and leave the rest to us. We will help grow your blog!

Good luck & get blogging!