Last Updated on August 4, 2023 by Anthony
Offering blog post writing as a service gives our team plenty of opportunities to create content for a full range of blogs. We have covered so many different industries that it’s hard to quantify them in a single post of our own. But one thing we can tell you is this: it’s not a wise idea to strictly limit topic selection for business blogs.
There is a common misconception among business owners that every blog post needs to directly discuss the company’s products or services. Such topics are fine to cover but covering them exclusively gets old very quickly. A better way to attack blog post writing is to branch out and cover all sorts of topics a company’s customers are likely to be interested in, as long as those topics are at least partially related to the products and services on offer.
Why Artificial Limits Are Problematic
We consider limiting blog post writing to a small number of topics as an artificial limit. Such limits can be problematic for both SEO and customer retention purposes. Think of it this way: your company maintains a business blog for two reasons: you want to drive new traffic through better SEO performance, and you want to give your existing customers a reason to keep visiting your website.
Placing artificial limits on blog topics harms those efforts in several ways:
- Irrelevant Information – Both Google and your customers want relevant information. You can only be so relevant if you are constantly recycling the same two or three topics time and again.
- A Stale Read – In addition to relevance, your customers want new and fresh content. Reading about the same old topics makes for a stale experience. That is not what you want if you are trying to build brand loyalty.
- Limited SEO Performance – Few business owners understand that limiting blog topics also limits their SEO performance by reducing the number of effective keywords they can leverage.
This last point about SEO performance cannot be understated. Search engines still rely on keywords as their primary means for ranking websites in organic searches. Limiting topics also limits keywords. Limiting keywords gives Google and its competitors fewer opportunities to rank a site.
Knowing What Your Customers Care About
So how do you avoid the temptation to create a stale business blog that recycles the same one or two topics incessantly? By knowing what your customers care about. You can figure that out pretty easily by asking them. You can also learn a lot by conducting your own keyword research to discover the top keywords customers are using to find your products or services.
Imagine a company that specialises in tarps and other cargo securement products for flatbed lorry drivers. There are only so many posts a company can produce speaking directly about tarps, ratchet straps, and edge protectors. It is such a highly specialised product list that you run out post ideas pretty quickly.
Guess what else lorry drivers are interested in? Information on cargo securement laws. They are interested in learning how to load their trailers more efficiently. They might be interested in knowing more about the materials manufacturers use to construct tarps, straps, etc. All would make fantastic topics for the company’s business blog.
How to Come Up with Topics
It has been our experience that business blog writers struggle most with coming up with new topics. They know their products inside and out and can write on them incessantly. But when it comes time to branch out into different topics that might appeal to their readers, they hit a roadblock.
We utilise several different strategies to offer the best blog writing service we can. Here are just some of the ways we come up with relevant and noteworthy topics to write on:
- Industry News and Trends – We often take a look at industry news and trends. Just paying attention to what is going on in your industry can reveal a gold mine of blog topic ideas.
- Guides & Tutorials – In it’s helpful content guide published in the summer of 2022, Google mentioned writing how-to guides and product tutorials. Customers love this sort of thing.
- Tips & Tricks – Along the same lines as guides and tutorials are tips and tricks. For example, a company selling health and beauty aids could offer some tips for better understanding product labels.
- Company News – Company news is also an incredibly good source of blog post topics. Loyal customers want to know what’s going on with your business. Keeping them abreast of the company makes them feel like part of the family.
- Success Stories – Writing blog posts around your company’s success stories can help readers better understand what you do and how you do it. Case studies are a prime example.
Do not get caught in the temptation of only writing blog posts directly related to your organisation’s products or services. Cover those topics from time to time but understand that your customers want to know more. If you don’t give them more, they will go elsewhere.
It is okay to cover topics that are only loosely related to your products or services. As long as your chosen keywords have been proved by research as effective for your particular industry, go for it. Branch out. Expand your writing. You will enjoy better SEO performance and happier, more loyal readers.