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A Better Blog Means More Visibility, Leads and New Business
The other day I was doing some research for a client on a regulatory compliance issue because we all know that whenever and wherever there’s regulatory change, it’s “surf’s up!” for consulting, accounting and law firms. I wanted to see how the issue had hit the blogosphere and who was grabbing their surfboard to catch the wave.
Here’s what I found: lots of announcements and alerts, a few articles that were nothing more than a cut and paste job from the regulatory authority, and a handful – albeit a very small handful – of posts that talked about the meaning and implications of the change. Most of it was droll, boring and lackadaisical
A blog really needs to be a lot more and do a lot more than just be vehicle for posting news about regulatory change or firm events. It’s a strategic tool whose purpose is to get the firm more visibility, and to create ongoing relationships with visitors and readers that leads to brand building and ultimately, to more new business.
Ten Ideas for Making Your Blog a Regular Destination
Your blog needs to be a destination of choice. It should be continually growing and be a key piece for differentiating your firm. Here are 10 ideas that will make your blog more readable .... and popular:
1. Write interesting, compelling, headlines
A clever, compelling, interesting title for your blog piece is a gateway to get more readers and to get readers sharing with their social circles. Writing great headlines is not a particularly easy thing to do. Check out this post from HubSpot called “A Simple Formula for Writing Kick-Ass Titles” for some guidance.
2. Stop regurgitating regulatory news and start talking about what it means – in human terms – and be a thought leader
Whenever I see a CPA or law firm use their blog as nothing more than a forum for cutting and pasting regulatory language, I just shake my head and think about the waste of time and energy expended. The job of a blog is to deliver thought leadership, not to be a cyber-copy machine. Don’t just cite the new changes; speak to what they mean and how compliance will affect the reader in terms they can understand.
3. Break your copy up with graphics or photos
Blogs that are nothing more than a humongous block of copy don’t get read with the same frequency that blogs that have graphics, photos and use bullets to break up the copy. These are tools to keep the reader engaged, and when “alt tagged” properly, also deliver SEO benefits.
4. Stop being advertorial and self-indulgent
This one drives me crazy and nothing will turn a visitor off from coming back or subscribing to your blog more than advertorial posts – especially those that read like an ad. A blog is not the place to showcase promotions or charitable events or even the dates and locations of your next seminar. It’s a place for delivering insights, observations and tips built around the thought leadership of your subject matter experts. If you have to talk about your firm, then create a “News and Events” section on your website for any and all firm related information.
5. Don’t write a novella
The tendency in professional services firms is to write blogs of enormous girth and width. Most of your visitors will have a very short attention span, so try to keep your posts to fewer than 1200 words. Anything longer might be put into a whitepaper format that can be tucked behind a form for lead generation purposes. Check out this post from Business 2 Community called “Size Matters – How Many Words Should My Blog Post Be?” for more guidance,
6. Write for humans and show some personality
Blogs that have some kind of personality – those that speak in human terms – tend to be those blogs that get read and grow in readership over time. Hey, I’m aware that your partners and subject matter experts are really smart and technically literate, but a blog may not be the right place to speak in technical terms. Consider who you’re writing for and their level of technical literacy, because before they buy, they’ll need to understand.
7. Variety
Blogs that get more lovin’ are those that deliver thought leadership in a variety of different ways to keep things interesting. Think about things like videos, infographics, podcasts, and other devices that can spice up copy-only blog site.
8. Great meta data – title tag and description tag
One of the easiest ways to get more folks to read your blog is with a great description that pops up when someone does a search. Meta descriptions are gatekeepers to blog posts, and with Google looking more and more to serving up content that’s the most relevant to a search term, you’ll want to serve up a description that will really motivate that eyeball to make the click onto the blog post.
9. Make each post easy to share
If you want more lovin’, then get more eyeballs. Today, that’s easy to do by giving readers a simple way to share your blog post with their social network. Most blog platforms will have the ability to make sharing easy by hooking up to various social media platforms. If you want to see this in action, check out our share buttons and launch this blog post into cyberspace.
(OK, so that last tip was a wee bit self-indulgent, but I’m feeling the need for some lovin’ because it just snowed here and it’s the beginning of April. Auuggghhhh!)
10. Optimize your blog for mobile using responsive design
The stats on the number of people using their mobile devices to access information is staggering, and will only keep growing. To make your blog more readable and accessible, it needs to be built around principles of “responsive design”, so that is will work on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop-size screen, and include the elements that make for the most seamless and enjoyable format. For more on this topic, see “6 Undeniable Reasons Why the Future of Web Design is Responsive” from HubSpot.
Put Yourself in Your Visitors’ Shoes
Here’s a simple exercise: Pretend you’re a business owner, or an Executive Director, or even a Board Member. Then take a look at your last 6 months of blog posts from that perspective and measure them against the 10 ideas presented above.
Hmmm. Pretty scary, eh? If you’re not happy then you have some work to do to make your blog more readable and popular.
It looks like I have some more work to do also. Snow shoveling work. It damn well better be the last time before next November or so, but I’m leaving the snow tires on just in case.
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