How to Create a More Sustainable Marketing Strategy with Blogging

As a small business owner, specifically solopreneurs, you have to juggle a lot of hats. You’re an owner, often an employee, the lead for marketing, the visionary, and SO much more. We know time is of the essence which is why sustainable marketing (AKA marketing that works for you for longer than just 24 hours (cough cough Instagram)) is SO important. Blogging is a great and sustainable marketing strategy that helps small businesses garner traffic to their websites long after each post goes live. If you’re thinking about starting a blog for your small business’ marketing strategy this year, here are our top five tips for creating a sustainable blog strategy that drives traffic for years. 

1. Answer the Big Questions

When it comes to creating a blog for a business, you want to take a moment to first think about your ideal client. Who are you trying to serve? What kind of person shops with you currently? What kind of person is searching for what you’re offering? Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you’ll want to ask yourself what kinds of questions are these people asking. What have past clients or customers asked about in the past? When your typical client comes to Google with a problem, what answers can you provide them that align with your services and your products? These are going to be the topics you’ll want to choose when writing your blogs.

2. Post Consistently

Though you don’t need to be posting a blog post every day like you might with socials like Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, it’s still a good idea to post consistently on your blog as part of your marketing strategy. That’s because Google actually rewards blogs that consistently post by putting your pages in front of more users. You want to position yourself as not only a knowledgeable resource for potential clients and Google, but also as a reliable and consistent source of information. Keeping a consistent blog schedule of even one blog a month can make a huge difference in building trust with Google in order to increase your reach over time.

3. Update Your Content Every Year

Google follows the lead of the people who are using it, which means as we evolve and seek new and up to date information, Google also will begin to push newer and more up to date information. In order to keep your blog and website relevant, you’re going to want to update some of your photos and information yearly to make sure your content is still relevant to your ideal client. Going back to time sensitive blogs and updating them each year, or changing out a couple photos in blogs that are still performing long after you posted are easy ways to keep things up to date and continue to gather traffic with them. 

4. Reuse Topics Elsewhere

One of the best parts about including a blog into your marketing strategy is that typically there is a LOT more information that goes into a blog than what goes into an Instagram post, so reusing your blog content across multiple platforms for multiple posts is a MUST. Remember as a business owner when it comes to marketing you always want to work smarter not harder so you can save all of your creativity for the big picture ideas. A blog like this for example could be split up into 5 separate Instagram posts, one for each tip.

5. Blog with Seasonality in Mind

SEO and blogging takes time, so it’s important to plan ahead with your posts knowing that the content you’re posting now is going to gain traction in time for next season. A good rule of thumb is to write about seasonal topics a few weeks out to a little less than a quarter ahead of the season it pertains to. That way the blogs you post have time to get their footing BEFORE the seasonality of your topic comes into play. Big corporations do this very well, Target as an example almost always puts their Christmas items out immediately after Halloween. They understand that after Halloween is over people will start planning out their decorations for the holiday season, and they’ll be ready for it.

Creating, writing for, and maintaining a blog can be a serious game changer when it comes to building a sustainable marketing strategy for your small business. These 5 simple tips are all crucial parts in making the most of your blog, and ensuring that Google will want to put your content in front of its users. For more tips on blogging and sustainable marketing practices be sure to check out some of our other articles!