I have committed to write one blog every weekday day for the next 60 days.
Why would I do such a crazy thing? For many reasons, but most of all to develop a skill. I believe the written word online is one of the most powerful marketing tools at our disposal.
Every landing page, marketing email, eBook, social media update and blog post all require carefully crafted words to convince and convert prospects into clients. The skill of writing sales copy is a skill that every marketer should develop.
Whether you think you’re a talented writer or not you can always be better. And it is important to be the best writer you an be if you’re serious about online sales and marketing.
Some would say that you should just outsource your writing and that is a great option. I write for other businesses that don’t have the time to write on a regular basis. But I know that the best person to write is the person who knows the content. And most of the time that is the business owner.
I undestand there are other ways to communicate online like video. Youtube is the second largest search engine next to Google so video is a very significant platform. I absolutley love video and have created by my fair share of videos in the past, but I am going to focus on blogging for the next 60 days for the following reasons:
Writing is Quick and Easy
When you first starting writing blog posts it’ll take you a long time to write each one. it takes time to write, edit, add images, upload and then format each post. For some it may take up to 5-10 hours per blog post. That is significant.
But the more you blog the quicker this process will become. You will write faster, require less editing and create a workflow to find images and upload the blog post much more efficiently. You could get the time to write and publish a blog post down to 2-3 hours.
2-3 hours is not a long time to create a high value piece of content for your prospects and clients. The best part is you can do it on the train, late at night or at lunch time. All you need is a laptop.
Unlike creating a video where you need a camera, the correct lighting, you need to look your best and have a great background. Once the video is recorded then the whole editing experience starts can also be complicated ith lots of hurdles.
I think video is a key part of every marketing strategy online today, but it is just hard. And trying to create videos on a regular basis is even harder.
Blogging is so much easier, you only need a laptop and you don’t need to depend on anyone else except yourself.
So for the ability to easily, steadily and realistically produce high quality content over the next 2 months, I have chosen to blog.
SEO Keeps on Giving
What I love about blogging is Google just loves it. Google’s search business is based on words so it favours sites with lots of meaningful blog posts. Once you publish a blog post Google will index it into it’s search engine. Then when someone types in the keywords found in your article Google will show your article in the search results.
The more content you have on your website, the more chances Google has to show your website to users searching for information.
The investment you make into writing is not just for today, but for the life of your website. Blogging is unlike other marketing activities like paid advertising where the leads stop flowing when you stop paying. Alternatively, as the years pass and your posts start to accumulate the authority of you site will increase and the traffic should build solidly over time.
Writing is a Valuable Skills
As mentioned before writing is one the the most important skills for todays online marketers. The ability to communicate your point clearly and quickly to an audience with a 10 second attention span is highly valuable in the marketplace.
There is one surefire way to get better at writing. Brian Clark of Copyblogger has a simple and memorable “10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer.” Here’s his advice:
FIGURE: Brian Clarkes advice on how to become a better writer
Increased Blogging Delivers More Leads
The more a business blogs, the more traffic their website will recieve. Below are two graphs by Hubspot which show the traffic and leads businesses recieve based on the number of times they blog per month.
FIGURE: Inbound Traffic based on the number of blog posts published per month
FIGURE: Inbound Leads based on the number of blog posts published per month
If that’s not a good reason to get you blogging then you probably need a kick up the pants. More blogging leads to more inbound leads.
The truth is you need a website optimised to capture the details of each visitor to your website to be successful. Each blog post must have a call to action which invites the reader to provide their email address in exchange for something valuable. But get this right and your lead flow will increase.
Of course it takes time to build and if you want this all to happen overnight then you will be dissapointed.
Conclusion
As you can see the benefits for blogging multiple times a week are enourmous. The best way to learn is to just do it. Write, write and write more. So why don’t you start a 60 day challenge to write one blog post every weekday.
You will become a better writer and Google will love you. Who doesn’t want to be loved by Google?