How to Create a Successful Blog Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide Did you know that 55% of marketers say blogging is their top inbound marketing priority? Did you also know that these marketers are 13x more likely to see positive ROI than marketers who don't invest in blogging? Over the last decade or so, businesses have increased revenue, improved brand awareness, and boosted conversions with valuable written content published for their target audience and customers. The key here is that their blog content is valuable — it isn't enough to simply have a blog; there has to be a purpose or reason for its existence. So, how can you create and maintain a successful blog that provides your target audience worthwhile, high-quality content — all while building your business's reputation as an industry thought-leader and expert? The answer is with a blog marketing strategy. Before we review the steps to your blog marketing strategy, let's take a look at how to start a successful blog. We'll also include examples of successful blog sites to illustrate some of these steps. 1. Choose your blog topic and purpose. The first part of developing your blogging strategy is to clearly define your blog's topic and purpose. Your blog topic should be broad enough so you can write hundreds of articles about it but also specific enough to relate to your business niche and area(s) of expertise. When thinking about your blog's purpose, ask yourself, "Why does this blog exist?" You...

The Beginner's Guide to Setting Up a Blog Did you know that there are more than 600 million blogs on the internet, and that 77% of web-surfers read blogs regularly? Blogging has exploded since its humble beginnings in the 1990s, and many people today interact with blogs frequently if not daily. By setting up a blog, you have the opportunity to make meaningful connections with other people, whether you want to share your recipes, talk about your lifestyle, or sell products and services. Whatever the topic, blogging serves as an outlet that can even become profitable. But before you see dollar signs, you'll need to set up a blog, which involves choosing a content management system (CMS), deciding on themes and color schemes, and reaching your target audience. This guide will help you navigate the process of setting up a blog successfully across various platforms. But before you set up a blog, you'll need to choose a CMS. Let's dive into that, first. How to Choose a CMS You can't have a blog without a CMS, or a content management system. As the name suggests, this is a system that manages your content. While you could certainly build a blog from scratch with savvy coding skills, a CMS does the hard work for you. This software makes it nearly effortless to switch up your blog's font styles, colors, and overall theme. It also means you can generate content much easier, simply clicking a few buttons to add photos and...

Why Blogs Fail — And How to Make Sure Yours Doesn't Of the 1.7 billion websites in the world, 600 million are blogs. And the number of US bloggers is set to reach 31.7 million in 2020. Clearly, blogging is competitive. You're constantly vying for people's precious online attention, which is around 15 seconds for more than half of readers. But for many, the benefits of running a blog outweigh the time, cost, and effort involved. That's because in 2019, marketers who prioritized blogging received 13X more ROI than companies that put it at the bottom of the stack. Beyond revenue, blogs are a great way to raise brand awareness, share engaging articles, and bring in new customers. Seems like an easy marketing win, right? Not quite. Before you hit 'publish' on that first piece, it's important to consider why blogs fail. To figure out what causes blogs to flop, let's look at a handful of blog statistics — and simple ways to make sure yours is a success. But first, let’s answer that nagging question in the back of your brain: So, we know what percentage of marketers feel their blogs aren’t successful, but what might have contributed to this failure? And how do you avoid these mistakes? Let’s take a look. Why Blogs Fail 1. The blog lacks a content strategy. Do you know why your blog exists? If so, does your content support that raison d'être? One of the main reasons why blogs fail is...

Blog vs. Podcast: Which Is the Best Choice for Your Business? Blogs and podcasts are both powerhouse marketing tools. Company blogs are well-established inbound marketing channels, while business podcasts are the up-and-comers garnering a lot of excitement in the industry. A few stats in the blog corner: 59% of marketers find business blogging valuable. (DemandMetric) Prioritizing blogging gave companies 13X the ROI compared with companies that did not prioritize their blogs. (HubSpot) About 70 million new blog posts are published each month on WordPress alone, with 77 million comments added per month. (WordPress) And in the podcast corner: 37% of Americans ages 12 and older listened to a podcast in the previous month. (Edison Research) Podcast listening is more prevalent among younger Americans. 49% of people aged 12 to 34 listened to a podcast in the previous month, followed by 40% of people ages 35 to 54, and 22% of people aged 55 and above. (Edison Research) The heaviest podcasts users listen while they are away from home; often while at work. (Nielson) Both blogs and podcasts nurture customer relationships, validate expertise, deepen brand loyalty, capture search, and generate leads. But each tool has benefits and drawbacks, and you probably wonder which will offer your business the most significant ROI. Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of blogs and podcasts, the audiences for each — and when offering both is best. Podcast Benefits and Drawbacks The Pros of Podcasting 1....

15 Amazing Blogging Insights Your Analytics Can Tell You A blog is a critical component of your inbound marketing strategy — it's the vehicle for driving traffic, generating leads, and establishing authority and trust... All in the early or middle stages of the buyer's journey. But how do you know if it's working? With all that content, traffic, and leads you're generating, are you aware that you're sitting on a gold mine of valuable data? Enter... Blog analytics. In this post, we'll cover: What blog analytics are Why they matter What metrics to measure How to measure them (Hint: With tools!)  By measuring performance based on data, you can identify what's working, what's not working, and why.  Why Blog Analytics Matters Let's say a key stakeholder in your company comes to you with this question: "How is the blog contributing to our goals?'' They want to craft the marketing budget and put their dollars toward the activities that make the most difference to the bottom line. Responding to their question with "Trust me" will not sway that individual to continue celebrating and investing in content marketing. By gathering and analyzing blog data, you can get a pulse on your blog's: Search presence (such as impressions, clicks, and click-through rate) Traffic performance (based on total views and visits, individual post performance, and by referral...

150 Power Words to Add Some Oomph To Your Copy & Deliver Results I can guarantee you that this article will be absolutely eye-opening. It will provide actionable, research-backed insight that's proven to take your marketing copy from mind-numbing to mind-blowing. I know what you're thinking — "Wow! The language you just used was absolutely electric! I'm totally engaged and emotionally invested! I need to read this article and learn more about whatever it's discussing! Wow!" Well, the words I used there — the ones that have you totally spellbound and intrigued — are designed to trigger emotional responses and capture attention. They're known as power words, and they're strong resources for getting more out of your marketing copy. Here, we'll explore the concept of power words a bit further and see a list of 150 of the most effective ones. Power words are evocative — that's the key to their appeal and efficacy. They subconsciously urge readers to take action. Words like "amazing", "definitive", and "jaw-dropping" give some extra oomph to your copywriting. They're over-the-top enough to play on strong feelings and trigger high-arousal emotions. Taken together, those factors can put a certain urgency behind your copy — one that consumers have been known to respond to. It's also worth noting that power words' utility extends beyond traditional marketing copy. These words can be used in sales or marketing emails, to urge consumers to read blog posts, or to flesh out successful CTAs. In all those cases...

Types of Blogs that Make Money in 2020 Blogging is an attractive activity because it can be a creative outlet for sharing your unique perspective with the world. Best of all, the opportunities are endless. At the same time, you want to add value for your readers (and maybe even turn your passion into income).  In this post, we lay out how to monetize a blog and provide examples of the most popular (and lucrative) types of blogs, all with the goal of helping you find inspiration as you get started with your own blog. How Do Blogs Make Money? Line any labor of love, blogging is still labor. Good news is that there are a number of ways to make money from that labor, including:  Advertising - Advertising networks such as Google AdSense will pay to show ads to your visitors. You get paid a commission for the clicks you earn.  Affiliate Marketing - You can get paid to promote products to your audience by joining an affiliate program such as Amazon Associates. You earn a commission from sales generated by your blog.  Lead/Demand Generation - You can always use your blog to promote your own business whether you provide a service, run an ecommerce store, sell digital products such as online courses, or run a subscription/ content model for exclusive content.  Keep in mind, though, that none of these can work if you don't first create valuable content that attracts an audience. The last...

50 Lucrative Blog Niches & Finding One That Works for You There's an obscure album by an equally obscure guitarist named Duck Baker called There's Something for Everyone in America. I don't know a ton about it — apart from the fact that it came out in 1975 and that its cover art is absolutely next-level. And while neither of those facts is particularly relevant to this article, the album's title is.  Image Source: Best Buy That idea that "there's something for everyone" doesn't just apply to America — nor does it have anything to do with what appears to be Lady Justice stabbing a tiger in the heart while Duck Baker casually looks on and smiles from a nearby window. No, that concept is also relevant to niche blog topics. Everyone has something that's meaningful and interesting to them in its own right, and in a lot of cases, those kinds of passions and pursuits can be channeled into a well-crafted, consistently maintained blog property. Here, we'll go over what you need to consider when choosing a niche blog topic and look into 50 potential blog niche ideas you can choose from. How to Choose Your Niche Blog Topic So what should you blog about? How do you land on the topic that will resonate most with readers and keep you fulfilled in the long run? Well, first and foremost, you need to consider your areas of expertise. Where are you an authority? What can you...

A Brief Timeline of the History of Blogging Greetings, readers. Welcome to the HubSpot Marketing Blog. We’re very happy to have you here. You might not realize it, but getting here was no easy task. Today, in 2016, I blog for a living, which is pretty great. But were it not for the long, twisty journey that got blogging to its current state, I might not be here. You might not be reading this. We've found that there's quite a history behind blogs. According to the documentation we uncovered -- and will share with you below -- they've been around since 1994. They looked a lot different back then, and had many different names and meanings. Merriam Webster currently defines a blog as “a web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” Remember that -- it’s going to come in handy later. But first, let’s talk about how we got here. The Blogging Vernacular The early vocabulary and semantics around blogging are more than a little muddy. As the practice developed, some of the more popular monikers were “weblog,” “personal web page,” and “online diary.” We'll dive into each of these a bit as we explore the more primitive days of blogging. Now, we simply say “blog” -- that's a pretty popular term in our vocabulary. But what it means continues to change. Bloggers have dozens of platforms and formats available (fun fact: HubSpot has a blogging platform, too), and there's no longer a standard for...

How Often Should You (or Your Company) Blog? Starting a blog is tough. Thinking about what to post and how to promote it requires strategic planning. And will your content resonate with and delight your customers? We haven't even covered how often companies should post — a factor that can make or break even the greatest of content. You might be surprised to know that even though there's a surplus of hard data about why blog posts are integral to marketing, there's not much on the frequency of posting. This is because, well, it depends. If ambiguity gets your heart racing, fear not. Here, we'll offer suggestions and stats to help inform your decision. If you're a marketing team of one, don't feel the need to constantly pump out content. If you do, you'll probably find yourself getting burned out and releasing content that's not beneficial to you or your audience. Keeping a schedule when blogging is important for two reasons. First, it builds organic traffic. Next, it helps with brand awareness. We'll get into why below. Organic traffic Blogging is important for SEO if you want to increase visits to your website. But, if you are already posting valuable content, it might benefit you to go back and update that content, especially if after a little while, you want to give certain posts a boost. Blog post traffic is compounding, which means it gains organic results over time. This is why updating posts are important. This...