Types of Blogs. Writing an Inbound Marketing Blog Post

We already know that the creation of content is key within the strategies of Inbound Marketing. All blogs follow a more or less similar writing process (gather information, categorize it, make a draft, work and polish the draft, edit it ...). However, there are different types of blogs so, depending on each kind of blog and on its goal, we must try to cover certain specific aspects of it.

Types of Blogs

We mention here some basic types of blogs that we can find on-line in order to show that each kind of blog has its own interest/goal:

• Personal Blog- In this blog, a person shares his/her life or some aspects of it: experiences, opinions, comments, pictures... their goal is to broadcast themselves to the world and nothing else.
• Educational Blog- Its intention is to give information on an specific topic, without offering any product or service. For instance, think of an on-line encyclopedia or dictionary. They work as reference pages of information and nothing else.
• Community Blog- All those people who are interested in a specific topic might join a blog that focuses on it (nutrition, environment, politics, health, business, sports...). This blog helps them build a virtual community based on common interests and helps them keep updated on information they care about.
• Company Blog- These are blogs that are created as a part of a company's Inbound Marketing strategy. They can also create a community and offer educational content to its visitors, but it all revolves around their service or product.

It is on this las type of blog that we will focus on.

Inbound Marketing Blog

This kind of blog is written in order to share content related to the product or service of a company. What for? So that customers get to know all about the brand and by doing so, recognize the real value of what the company is offering them.

6 Aspects that we should take care of in this type of blog:

1.- Buyer persona. You must always keep in mind who your customers are, the people that will read your post. It is them who you are writing for! What are their needs? What questions may they have? Try to imagine the questions that they may have in advance so you can give them the most accurate information possible. Know your audience so you can answer to their questions before they even ask.

2.- Title. Clear and engaging. Think of your clients (you want to catch their attention from the start) and of search engines (use keywords in your title).

3.- Blog's presentation. Try not to write a very long blog post since, when people are looking for information on-line, they want to solve their questions fast. If your text happens to be long, then try to organize it well and make it "friendly" for your client to read:

• Clear subheadings
• Simple bullet lists
• Highlight important information with bold writing
• Use relevant images
• Write brief and understandable paragraphs

4.- SEO. Optimize your text so internet's search engines find your content more easily: keywords, clear meta-descriptions, alt-text images, headings, etc...

5.- Respect your reader! Writing a brief and an easily understandable text for everyone, does not mean it has to be empty, fake or too simple. You have a message to give so do it and do it right: your message must be true, have logic and solid argumentation and should be verifiable.

6.- Find and editor or some other person who can read it and make comments on it. Most of the times they can find mistakes that us, as authors, didn't see. Since they see it "from the outside", they can see out text from a different perspective. Be grateful for their comments and polish your article.

Avoid the following:

• Tricking your reader. Do not write a title that promises one thing in order to catch your reader's attention and then deliver something different. Consistency satisfies your customers, tricking them pushes them away.
• Forgetting about your reader. We are writing for people, not for search engines. Although we want to appear in Google searches, our client is not the search engine, it's people. Make a good balance between SEO and what your client wants to read.
• Not considering your buyer persona. We are not writing for everyone in general, consider the specific tastes and interests of your buyer persona, of your specific "model" customer, as well as their buyer's journey stage.

As you can see, there are several aspects that you should take care of when writing an Inbound Marketing blog post. Follow these recommendations and you will be on the right track.

If you want to know more about the entire Inbound Marketing strategy, go to an expert agency and seek for advice.

Inform your clients, create a direct relationship with them and watch your business grow exponentially based on the content that you offer them and on their satisfaction.

For more information on DataBranding, an expert agency on Inbound Marketing, click here. We can go from giving you advise on how to start your Inbound Marketing campaigns, to make the campaigns with you and guide you through the entire process.