I’ve always been a writer, but I haven’t always been a blogger, and not just because blogging didn’t exist when I was learning my alphabet and writing my first short stories and school essays. Just like there’s a difference between the skills needed to write a compelling story and the skills needed to write an A-worthy essay, there are still other skills you need when you’re blogging for a business and none of my English classes taught me those skills.
So how did I go from writer to blogger?
Some of it was just practice, but I also lucked out by majoring in Psychology when I was in college. At the time, I wanted to pursue an acting career and I thought some psychology courses would help me understand my characters better. I never dreamed I would end up completely falling in love with the world of psychology, or that this thing called content marketing would explode and would need people who had both strong writing skills and a solid understanding of what motivates people. In addition to Psychology, I also majored in English because I’ve always loved the written word. I had no idea I was getting the perfect degree for content marketing.
As much as I value my degree and the time I spent in college, you don’t need an expensive degree to develop strong blogging skills. Here’s what you do need:
Table of Contents
- Create a Blogging Schedule and Stick to It
- Learn Networking Skills
- Learn SEO Skills
- Write More Than Just Blog Posts
- Learn Branding Skills
- Learn Goal-Setting Skills
Create a Blogging Schedule and Stick to It
One of the biggest mistakes I see small business owners making when they try to do their own blogging is they blog about whatever comes to mind and they only publish blog posts when they find the time to do so. Get someone who hates blogging, and that blog can lie dormant indefinitely as they continue to find things to do that are anything but blogging.
Failing to publish new blog posts regularly defeats the purpose of even having a blog. With a haphazard posting schedule, you won’t be as effective at showing up in online searches (Google loves new content because it’s perceived as being more relevant), and you won’t effectively engage and convert leads who find your website because the lapse in blog posts will make them wonder if anyone is still behind the site. If you can’t be relied on to publish new content, maybe you can’t be relied on to provide the products/services you promise either.
While some of the best writers have been famous for blowing their deadlines, in order to be successful as a blog writer, you need to be able to maintain a schedule. The more often you can post new articles, the better, but quality matters more than quantity. I recommend one high-quality article per week if you can manage it. But if you can only do one or two a month, then do what works for you. Just make sure it’s no less than once per month.
Learn Networking Skills
Networking with other bloggers is a great way to get insider tips on the industry, but you should also make sure you’re networking with your target audience. Not only is that a great way to get in front of them personally, it’s also a great way to find out what questions they have about what you provide, giving you inspiration for blog post topics. Just make sure you do your keyword research first to make sure it’s a topic other people are searching, and that it has not already been covered to death by your competition.
Learning how to identify potential clients and power partners in a roomful of people, not to mention how to follow up with them after the event in a way that is tactful and mutually beneficial is definitely an underrated skill that every small business owner needs to know.
Learn SEO Skills
I had no idea what SEO was when I was studying English and Psychology in college. I had a vague understanding of keywords when I started writing blog posts for a couple different law firms, but I had no idea how to research keywords, much less decide which ones to target.
Now I can go on and on about keywords, meta-tags, categories, thin content vs. in-depth content, and even algorithms! If you had told me when I started blogging that I would need to understand how Google’s algorithm works in order to make it in this business, I probably would have been too intimidated to leave my day job.
But SEO is such an important part of blogging that I didn’t stand a chance at making it as a content marketer if I didn’t also learn about SEO. Much to my surprise, it’s something with which I have become completely fascinated, and keeping up to date on all the latest changes to the Google algorithm is actually something I enjoy doing.
Write More Than Just Blog Posts
Of course blogging is important, but it should not be the only content you create for your business. You also need ebooks, press releases, newsletters, and social media, each of which requires a slightly different skillset from blogging.
You don’t have to be an expert in every type of content, but you should have a general idea of the differences between each one. Keep in mind that the differences will largely depend on your target audience and your goal for each piece of content, which means you always need to consider those two things before you start writing.
Learn Branding Skills
Branding is another thing I never thought I would need to know much about, but when I started writing blog posts for other people, I wanted to make sure the blog posts I was writing for them sounded like something they would have written. This was especially true when writing for people who had been writing their own blog posts for a while and had an established tone of voice their readers had come to expect.
Now, whenever I get a new client, one of the first things I do is look through their existing content to get a feel for the tone of voice. If they don’t have a blog, or if they’re going through a rebranding process and they want a new tone of voice, I’ll ask for examples of other content online that’s similar to the tone of voice they want to use in their own content. If they happen to have written out guidelines for their brand voice, that makes my job so much easier!
Learn Goal-Setting Skills
Regardless of whether you’ve written them down, you probably have goals for your company, even if it’s just to make enough to pay the bills each month.
The same should be true of your blog. If you’re just blogging because someone told you you need to be blogging for your business, but you don’t have a clear strategy, you’re wasting your time.
Each piece of content you create for your business (including each blog post) needs to have a goal you want that content to achieve.
One of the biggest mistakes I see content marketers making is either failing to put a call to action at the end of their content, or putting a weak call to action that does nothing to motivate the reader to take that action.
Since blog posts are mostly informational (or at least they should be), it doesn’t always make sense to put a “buy” button at the end of your blog posts unless you’re selling something fairly inexpensive and/or necessary, such as hygiene products.
For those of us in industries with a longer buyer journey (B2B industries, professional service industries, etc.), people searching for information are not necessarily ready to buy. Instead, they might be looking for information on how to do something for themselves before they hire someone. Or they might be looking for more information on how a certain law in their area works before deciding if it’s time to hire a lawyer. In that case, it might make more sense to lead them to more content (such as other blog posts on related topics) so you can give them more information and better position yourself as an authority on the subject. That way, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll know to reach out to you. For example, after giving you several tips on how to do a better job of writing your own blog posts, here’s my call to action:
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Abdullah Ibna Jafar
Alison Ver Halen