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Creating A Blog That Ranks In Your Industry

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When it comes to growing your business, online marketing is key. There are several channels and options to choose from for the course of your marketing journey. A very easy way to promote your business and gain new customers is to get your business listed on local business directories. Hundreds of online local business directories, like Yelp, Google My Business, Social Media, and Foursquare, for example, that will help maximize your reach. It is important to get your business listed on as many directories, map, and review sites as possible. The reason for this lies in how search engines do the work to retrieve business listings from all of the sites and display them in local search results. If the name of your business and other information like address and phone number are identical across all the directories, if it is 100% complete and updated frequently, Google will promote your listing with a higher ranking in the local search results. If these measures are not met, your listing will be pushed down or even completely removed! It is possible to search for your business on directories to find if your business is listed, but the work to do so can be very tedious by way of the sheer number of listings that are out there. In many cases, your business listing may have been automatically added to these particular sites from an automated process without any of your knowledge or effort. When this is the case, you can work to claim our business on the directory and once you can prove you own it, you can edit the information to make sure it reflect complete and accurate information. The route to take to change the information varies from directory to directory. Some digital directory service teams, or digital marketing agencies such as us here at OCGnow, will create a complete and accurate profile of your business and have it published to the most important directories across the web. After just a few days they will begin to appear or reflect the revisions that have been made. It is possible to make your business listings to stand out from others by offering content like videos, photos, special offers, services, and keywords. Additional marketing measures to take are connecting your listings to your social media. Combining your social media pages with your listing content and bios helps boosts your exposure. Since your customers are already searching on directory, map, and review sites for local businesses are bound to come across your business listing and offers. Looking to get your business found, accurately, on the span of listing directories on the web? Give OCGnow a call today at to schedule an evaluation of your online presence to develop an action plan for growing your digital reputation.

Creating a blog does so much more than just provide information about your product or service. It helps shape your online presence and grow its authority. Here are some top tips for creating a blog that ranks your brand in your industry:

First to market

More and more blogs are competing for attention. Most are easily forgettable, simply echoes of every other blog in their niche. One or two stand out and stick in your mind. Great content is important for engaging our audiences. However, it might still not be enough!

People have only so much time and attention to share. If they are already subscribed to three excellent gadget blogs, why should they add yours?

This is where the brand that is the first to market an idea or piece of content has the advantage. Being first means you stand out simply because you are the only one. What are some ways your blog can achieve this kind of notoriety?

First in mind

Oftentimes, the first you think of is not the first in the industry. It is just the first that comes to your mind. People will usually announce something on their blog that they think is new, only to have a comment come back saying “old news” or even “so and so did this last year.” If the first is not particularly well known or even that good, you could most likely be first in mind by having a better launch or better product!

You can also be first in mind by being first in a brand new category that you create. It is very difficult to compete with an entrenched leader. For products, the top three usually share all but a tiny amount of the audience. The number one blog usually has double the share of the number two blog, which has double the share of number three. Poor number four has the crumbs that are left, and the rest pretty much starve for mainstream attention.

Take the following situation, for example. There are already several blogs out there discussing professional blogging issues. Performancing launched the first multi-blog that focused only on professional blogging tips and strategies. It is usually easier to find an unoccupied position and fill it with something good than trying to compete with a leader, even with something great.

Optimize for keywords

Keywords are one of the keys to on-page SEO. They refer to the words, terms, or phrases that users type into search engines. While writing a niche and unique blog is great and all, it would be irrelevant if your audience can’t find it. This is where keywords come in. Once you’ve established what you want to focus on, you need to conduct research on the keywords that work best for your industry.

This requires you to know your audience, including what they are searching for and what keywords receive high-flow traffic. Luckily, there are several keyword research tools, both free and paid plans, that can assist you in this endeavor. There are some things you should consider when including keywords in your blogs.

For one, you should ideally optimize for long-tail keywords. They tend to get less search traffic, but more often than not, they result in a higher conversion rate since they are more specific. Also, you should include keywords in your post’s URL, title tags, and meta descriptions. As you optimize your blog with keywords, don’t forget to optimize for voice search as well.

Create buyer personas

Before writing any blog, take a moment and consider how well you know your audience. You can’t target everyone, and that’s why you need to have a clearer picture of your readers so you can create more effective and relevant content. This is the premise of developing and using buyer personas. Buyer personas are like character sketches for bloggers. They define your audience by their age, interests, habits, and online behavior.

You can easily create a buyer persona based on data from your site analytics, site-visitor surveys, social media monitoring, and interviews with your readers. With a buyer persona, you can directly speak to your audience, address specific issues your audience has, and be more granular in what you write about.

How can you make your blog different?

If you can’t think of a new category you can create, here are some ideas for how you can be different:

  • Size/Scale: You might post more often or just have one killer post per day. Obviously, your audience would need to know how often you are going to post, or they might not work out your differences.
  • Focus: This is a good way of being different. I am not going to blog about “computer games”; I am going to be the XBOX360 blogger or even a “first-person shooter blog.” By sacrificing related variables, you gain clarity in the audience’s mind.
  • Gender/Age/Sexuality: There might be a bunch of blogs in your niche, but have any been written by someone from your demographic? A gadget site for girls or a Linux blog for over 50s, for example.
  • Location/Geography: Lots of blogs are USA-centric. You can be different just by writing about your niche in your hometown/country/continent.
  • Market/Platform: Take a winning formula and switch the market. Business blogs can choose to write only about small to medium-sized companies, and techies can choose to only write about Mac, Windows, or LAMP.
  • Target Audience: Similar to the previous tip, choose a winning formula and switch the audience. You can be different by aiming at experts or beginners, professionals, or hobbyists.
  • Celebrity: Get a celebrity on board or create a celebrity. I am not necessarily talking about Brad Pitt. In every niche, there are names that pop up all the time. Cozy up to them, interview them, and get them talking about you.
  • Medium: Alter the medium slightly, and you have a whole new ball game. Think blog to podcast, then podcast to video. Mix up the medium!

Is your blog unique?

Once you have settled on your own differentiated niche, you need to articulate this difference. Your blog needs to project and exude this difference in the content, the design, the tone of voice, your marketing, everything. The visitor needs to always be aware that yours is the ________ blog.

Now you have some ideas of how you can think differently, ask yourself, “Is my blog unique?” Can you make it unique?

Give OCGnow a call today at (904) 600-3600 for help with furthering your online presence and creating a blog with amazing and engaging contact for your audience.

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