Content marketing: how to write a successful blog

Content marketing is part of the Inbound Marketing methodology and consists mainly of accompanying the user throughout their purchase cycle, that is, from the moment the person becomes aware of the need they have until they make the decision to buy a good or hire a service. Within content marketing there are four different formats of digital content: text, image, audio and video. Within the image format we can find photographs, infographics, GIFs or memes; within the audio format we have podcasts, interviews or audiobooks; in the audiovisual format we find live broadcasts, tutorials or product reviews; and finally, in the text format we can find some digital content such as ebooks, or blogs, which we are going to talk about today.

what is a blog?

Before starting with the guidelines for writing a successful blog in your content marketing strategy, you should know what exactly a blog is and how it differs from a vlog. First of all, blogs are creative spaces that contain information mainly written in depth in a specific area. For example, we can find recipe blogs, computer blogs, business blogs, marketing blogs, technology blogs... In blogs there is always one or more people behind the posts who could be considered content creators and who are able to write specific information in an original and concise way so that their posts can reach the knowledge of all users.

However, when the word is written beginning with the letter v, we are talking about a different term, although both sound the same to our ear. The idea of both terms is infinitely related and is that a vlog is nothing more than a blog but in video format. That is, it was decided to put a "v" for the word "video" to the term "blog" to name those blog formats that mix both text and video, but where the main activity takes place in video. At first, vlogs were nothing more than the videos that were included in blog posts to accompany the text and make it more dynamic. However, with the rise of video platforms like YouTube, vlogs have gone from being an accessory to our posts to become the only protagonists.

how to write a successful blog?

Writing a blog, as you have already seen, is an option widely used by companies. It is one of the bases of content marketing strategies as you have the option of displaying information in a large number of formats. It is also a channel where it is easy to get leads as the traffic that appears on the page is entirely yours, i.e. it is not on a third-party platform as happens in social networks. But what tips can we give you to write a successful blog?

1. define the topic you are going to write about. When writing an article you have to define the topic you want to talk about. It has to be relevant to your audience and it can be short or long, as you decide .
2. choose keywords: Onceyou have chosen a topic for your blog post, it's time to think about how readers will find it. To be successful, you will need to conduct keyword research to find the most relevant searches for that topic.
3. once youhave defined the topic you want to talk about, and what keywords you are going to use, it is time to see what other blogs that write about the same topics are doing. The easiest thing to do is to search for the different keywords you will use in the most popular search engines (Google) and see which blogs appear in the top results .
4. grab attention with a good title. The title is the first thing your readers will see and this will determine whether or not they read the article. Try to write a descriptive and accurate title. Also, try to add the most important keywords in the title. This will help not only your readers, but also the search engines to understand more easily what the article is about and, therefore, to position you better in the results when someone does a related search .
5. write interesting text - start with an introduction that describes the topic and why you chose it, then the body of the text with all the relevant information, examples and images, and finally a conclusion or sentence that closes the general idea .
6. use appropriate images - add pictures to help the reader digest the information, and images are great for giving your readers a little break, but always make the message clear .
7. share and promote your article. Social media or email marketing are two of the most effective methods, although a great way to get yourself known is to appear as a guest writer on other blogs or to collaborate in general with other brands .

Remember that content marketing, and blogs in particular, are an essential part of inbound marketing, which will increase traffic to your website.