What is a Blog, and Why Should You Use it?

Online businesses often contemplate if starting a blog is truly a good idea – or if it’s something you should do because other companies have one. Before you choose whether or not to create a blog, let’s look at some stats: 

• According to DemandMetric, businesses with blogs produce 67% (on average) more leads monthly compared to businesses that don’t blog. 
• HubSpot shared that blogging is the third most popular content marketing strategy. 
• DemandMetric also shared that 59% of marketers feel that blogging is valuable to their businesses. 

The numbers speak volumes, and it’s safe to say that blogging is more than just writing a few short 200-word articles about what your business is currently launching. 

Blogs are a great way of bulking out content related to your company – without too much effort. It’s also great for things like SEO and customer acquisition, which we’ll chat a bit more about later in this guide. 

But for now, let’s get down to the basics of what a blog really is and how it can benefit your business. 

In this article: 

• What is a Blog?
• Benefits of Promoting Your Online Teaching with a Blog
• Creating a Successful Blog: SEO Guidelines to Follow 
• 3 Customer Acquisition Strategies for Your Blog 

What is a Blog?

A blog is a web page or website that is regularly updated with content. It can be used for personal or business use and generally contains content related to a particular topic or industry. 

For example, Mastera’s blogs are related to various topics concerning online teaching, online learning, video monetization, coaching, etc. This is because Mastera sells software related to these topics. The blog is more likely to attract readers interested in these subjects – essentially growing a buyer persona for the company and building an online community of like-minded people. 

Benefits of Promoting Your Online Teaching with a Blog

Drives organic traffic to your site

If you’re just starting out your online course business, you may feel that getting traffic to your site is a challenge. But a blog can help with this. By creating more content and uploading it to your blog regularly, you can be sure that you’ll start to see momentum in visits to your website over some time. How? 

Well, search engines like Google index new web pages every time you add new ones to your website and blog. 

The more indexed pages you own, the higher the chances of you ranking well within certain search engines for specific keywords (we’ll talk about those in more detail later). 

Establishes credibility

When businesses have blogs, it means that they’re willing and able to share expert content for free. This gives followers the chance to see them as valued experts in the field and follow them for enriched content regularly. 

As you continue to post and add more educational and inspirational content to your blog, audiences are sure to deem you as a credible resource and a credible company. 

People love to learn. Let them. 

Increases interest and sales

If you chat with sales teams in the corporate world, you’ll find that many of them feel that using a blog as part of the sales journey is an effective tactic. This may sound far-fetched at first, but it works because a blog gives a potential customer a very good idea of what the company is about, what their knowledge level is, and what sets them apart. 

It’s crucial that you add a call-to-action button or link within your blog articles. 

Creating a Successful Blog: SEO Guidelines to Follow

Starting an online business and getting your name out there can be a tough nut to crack. But these five foundations will assist you in gaining a competitive advantage from day one:

1. Write long articles: More words – that’s the way to go. Yes, search engines such as Google have shared that the longer blog articles tend to get indexed well and, consequently, ranked better because of more words. The longer your articles are, the better search engines can understand your content and target it to the right niche. Aim for a minimum of 1500 words. If you don’t have the time dedicated to writing an article this long, focus on articles between 500 and 1000 words each, ensuring that you post frequently. Once a week is a good target. 

2. Post frequently: This is possibly one of the most critical parts of having a blog. Don’t forget to post! The number of pages that Google can index is important, but the search engine also has to understand that you’re an active blogger, constantly contributing to your blog. This wins brownie points for sure. Aim for a minimum of one blog article per week. If you can do more – even better! 

3. Do your keyword research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to help you search for keywords related to your topic. Google’s keyword research tool enables you to discover keywords most appropriate for your company. 

4. Use internal links and get backlinks: Links are something that should be in every blog. Internal links are links that take you to another page on your website. Backlinks are links that live on external websites and link back to your site. These are extremely valuable in the SEO world and get you to rank higher in search engines because Google sees them as people using your site for reference. 

5. Add a call-to-action: We’ve touched on this slightly, but adding a call-to-action button or link within each article is vital. If someone is fairly interested in your blog article and by the end of it, they want to sign up – don’t make them find your contact page or purchase page on their own. Help them get there with ease. 

3 Customer Acquisition Strategies for Your Blog 

Now that you know how to get your blog ranking well on search engines, let’s take a look at how to use your blog to acquire new customers: 

#1: Tell a Story

People love stories – don’t be shy to share yours. 

When you’re launching a new product or service, add some meat to the ‘press-release’ blog style. Add some information on how you arrived at this solution and what you want this product to do for your customers. Readers will appreciate a back story and will likely warm up to your brand if it’s more real. 

#2: Use an Opt-In  

Opt-ins help you direct your readers to complete an action that will benefit your business. Some examples are: 

• Opt-in for a first-time buyer discount.
• Opt-in for ‘more content like this,’ which subscribes the reader to new blog alerts. 
• Opt-in for free downloads. 

#3: Ad Subtle Product Placement   

This is marketing at its finest – because it feels so natural and unforced. Within your blog article, speak about general challenges that arise from the topic you’re talking about. Then, add an internal link and a short explanation of how your product or service solves this issue. It builds trust and subtly mentions what your business is about.

Integrating Your Blog and Online Course Platform with Mastera 

Ready to start that blog? If you are in the online teaching space, speak to us at Mastera about how we can merge your blog and online course software needs. So that you can manage content, host content, manage customers, and market to them using just one platform. It takes away the stress of needing multiple logins and channels, giving you the time to focus on getting quality content ready for your readers. 

Keen learn more about our platform? Chat with us.