Blogging isn't relatively new. In fact, the first ever blog was created by Justin Hall on Links.net in 1994, the same year Tim Berners-Lee invented World Wide Web. Though blogs are widely misconstrued as cash grabs or lead generation sources, brands that do it with that sole motive often don’t succeed.

Blogging is an art, an art that requires a dire passion for the written word, ground-breaking knowledge on the subject, and of course the main ingredient that binds everything together - storytelling!

I was recently in conversation with one of my friends who happens to own a small business that sells self-defense tools for women. Her concern with blogging was that it would not yield any result no matter how hard she tried and was on the verge of giving up.

This is the trajectory of almost all brands that delve into blogging - they start without a checklist, don’t see any results, and ultimately quit.

You need to look at it this way - Your blog would bring people to your site, and typically can be what brings them back a second, third, and fourth time. We all know that visitors that return have a better chance of converting as they have some kind of trust established with your brand.

In this case, what value can you provide to them through your blogs? How can they benefit from your content? What strategies can you implement to make sure your efforts are in line? Think about it!

Even though blogging has been a sure-fire thing for decades, it is still a grey area for a lot of individuals and businesses. This is what compelled us to write a dedicated content piece that would guide a brand to success in terms of blogging. For brands that don’t have a checklist yet, this blog would surely be your knight in shining armor!

1) Reinforce your mission

A lot of people confuse the mission with the output or results of blogging. A lot of folks, if asked would say that their mission is to get 10x traffic on their website through their blogs. This is the first loophole. If you think this way, it would be very difficult for you to leverage blogging as means of lead generation.

A blog mission statement reminds you why you are blogging in the first place. It helps you, your team, and even your audience understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. This would be completely exclusive to your brand making it something your audience can resonate with.

2) Social Proofing

We believe that the best method for social proofing is to let your customers talk! They say writing content for the audience makes a huge difference, we say writing content WITH them makes the most difference.

There are so many ways to do this - Reviews, Testimonials, Guest Blogging, etc. Just pick up your niche and let your customer feel that his opinions are valued. This would not only leave an everlasting impression on him but his opinions would resonate with so many others! The goal here would be to put them at the center of the story, not your brand.

3) Incorporate a Content Calendar

The importance of a content calendar can not be undermined in any way, shape, or form. Auditing content can give you immense clarity with regard to the overall strength of your blog. You should mirror your content with the user personas for your brand and see if it is adding some kind of value to their lives.

We had a client that struggled with blogging in terms of conversions. Although they were getting great traffic, they were not able to pinpoint why those people were not converting. Upon auditing, we found out that they were writing content for only one niche and that niche wasn’t even their target audience. A content plan makes sure that you reach your target audience, regardless of their location. It will help you reflect upon your brand.

4) Humanize it

Never forget that you are writing for a person. Even though Marketing is one of the key purposes of blogging, never forget to make it conversational and hook the reader into the blog so he feels like he is a part of it.

Brands are skeptical to do this but forget that authenticity is what makes the brand stand out. Take an example of buildd.co , they add a human touch to all of their blogs that make people around the globe remember them for how they make them feel!

5) Timeless Content

Timeless content is the type of content that stays relevant to people, regardless of the course of time. Brands nowadays want to hop on the bandwagon to create “Viral” content. What they fail to understand is that the essence of “viral content” fizzles out as time progresses.

Timeless content on the other hand would yield so much more value to you and your customers. For example: If you wrote a blog on how to make dalgona candy back in 2021 when the Netflix show squid games peaked, you would get good views but it would plateau after a period of time. However, if you were to write a blog on “How to make the best strawberry shortcake candies” it would be an evergreen blog.

6) Higher Word Limit

Gone are those days when you would rank high on the search engine by merely writing a 300-500 word article. Nowadays, with the advent of inbound and content marketing, you have to adhere to a longer word limit to establish that your content is worthy to crawlers. This is something that we at Apric have first-hand experienced.

We recommend at least 1500-1700 words per article. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some hard and fast rule but rather a guideline or a blueprint to get the knack of blogging.

7) SEO Compatibility

No matter how much you learn about SEO, something always tends to miss out. We have a dedicated blog on everything you need to know about SEO so make sure to check it out to get the utmost clarity on the concept.

There are thousands of mistakes that you may encounter while figuring out SEO. We do agree that3 it can be a little tricky but with the right improvements and strategies, one can instantaneously see results. Although Google changes its algorithm every 2-3 years, many decisions that create the largest ROIs are very easy to execute, like adjusting keywords.

8) Internal Linking

An internal link is any link from one page on your website to another page on your website. Links are used by search engines as well as your audience to navigate through your content to find what they need to find.

Internal Linking also massively aids in increasing the user experience of your website by offering additional knowledge on a related or identical subject. If a person is interested in one of your internal links and clicks on it, it enhances the time spent on your website and decreases the bounce rate as well. Just make sure that those links flow naturally and are not “forced” into your content just for the sake of internal linking.

9) Repurpose Content

Repurposing and Reusing old content is very helpful for your brand image. Let us say you wrote a blog post on “10 best treadmills under $1000” in 2014 and it garnered astronomical views. Even now, it does give you 100+ views per day. However, 3 of the treadmills mentioned in the blog have not been discontinued. Outdated information can get very frustrating to the reader.

In this case, you can edit the blog with newer versions of treadmills that are easily available in the market for under $1000. Your blog needs to provide useful and relevant information at all times.

10) Improve the Design Layout

If your content is not legible, there is too much or too little whitespace, or if you are using low-quality images, you are less likely to attract any visitors even if your content is top-notch. In this day and age of cutthroat competition, you need to ensure that you stand out and exude quality in all endeavors.

If your design layout is not attractive, treat it as one big project with subtasks and start working on it one by one. At the end of the day, your efforts will be worth it.

Digging to it….

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to blogging. At the most basic level, you need to understand your audience and find something that connects you to them. Only after that would you be able to leverage the blogging checklist enclosed in this article.

Stay tuned for our next blog! Ciao! 🙂