The 3 Ingredients of a Successful Company Blog

Despite what you may have heard, blogging is not just for angsty teenagers.

It’s for businesses too. Not only can blogs help you attract new customers through content marketing, they can also help you improve your website’s presence in search results. If there’s one area you should invest more time into online, it’s your blog.

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If you don’t have a blog, they’re easy to set up. We always recommend using WordPress, as it’s affordable and easy to work with for beginners. All you have to do is find a mobile responsive theme and start writing.

If you already have a blog set up on your website, great. I’m going to walk you through what you need to do to run a successful blog, and how to create a strategy that will attract a large audience.

I want to stress that there are three types of blog content for you to consider. I’m going to outline how to successfully create each type of content, and what percentage of your posts should be from each category.

1. Viral Content

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Don’t let the title of this content fool you, by no means will all of your posts in this category go ‘viral’. However, this type of content is the most likely to get big shares and lots of likes. What you’ll be aiming to do with this content is reach as many people in your service areas or industry as possible. You’ll want to assume that your target audience has never heard of you, and that this will be their first interaction with your brand. Think of broad topics, that you yourself would be likely to click on. This type of content should make up about 60% of your articles.

For this article, I’m going to give content examples for a real estate brokerage, but you’ll get the idea and be able to apply it to your business sector.

Here are some sample topics for a brokerage based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

10 Restaurants in South Florida You Must Visit

The 5 Most Popular Places to Retire in Florida

The Happiest Cities in South Florida

None of these topics are specific to real estate or are overly specific in location, and they cast a broad net. You want to introduce yourself to as many people as possible with these posts. One great trick is to message every small business, restaurant, or city tourism board you mention on Facebook, and tell them that you’ve included them in your article. Having just one restaurant share your article on their Facebook page can literally bring you thousands of visitors.

2. Discovery Content

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The second type of content you’ll want to be creating is discovery content. These are posts that focus in a bit further on your industry, and on your service areas. Try to write on topics that affect your local community or your industry – for our brokerage example, you could focus on neighborhood updates, what to look for when buying a property, or first-time homebuyer tips. These are all types of content that your potential clients will be searching for when it comes time to buy property.

Here are some topics for a brokerage based in Seattle, Washington.

The Safest Housing Investments in West Seattle

The 5 Best Public Schools in Renton

What to Expect From the Seattle Housing Market in 2016

These topics are all local, more specific than the viral phase, and provide valuable insight. Approximately 30% of your posts should focus on discovery content, leaving 10% left for our the third type of content we’ll be discussing.

3. Consideration Content

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This is where you present yourself as the expert. Consideration content leaves room for everything you want to communicate to your audience about your business. For our brokerage example, you could post about everything from client testimonials to new listings you’d like to promote. Be sure to save room talking about your past successes, what you’ve learned, and anything that you think that a client who knows you would want to read. You should expect these posts to be read by people who have already worked with you or are very close to working with you, and write them with your audience in mind.

Here are some topic ideas for a real estate brokerage (anywhere in the nation).

Client Testimonials

Personal Stories (What You’ve Learned)

New Listings You’d Like to Feature

This content should only represent about 10% of your blog content, and you should share it sparingly (no more than once per week on social media). You’ll inevitably get much lower views on this content, but remember, it’s the bottom of the funnel. Just because there are fewer people reading does not make it less important. If anything, it’s the most important part of your blog.

If you’ve already started a blog, awesome. Tweet me @CaveJustin and let me know where to find you, or if you have any questions about your content strategy. If you don’t have a blog, don’t fret. The best time to start a blog was 20 years ago, the second-best time is right now.

Ready to get started writing? Here’s a look at how to write your first blog with over 1,000 views.