When a new client joins forces with us here at Maverick Websites, more often than not we encourage them to have a blog built to sit alongside their site.

Everyone’s heard of a “blog” but for those that don’t know, it’s a word invented as an abbreviation of “web log” and is essentially a regularly updated web page written in a conversational style – basically, exactly what this post you’re reading now is!

Blogging is one of the most effective tools around for generating traffic to your website. It won’t do a whole lot in the short-term, but if you persevere and post articles, thoughts and ideas relevant to your target market, it can prove extremely invaluable to your audience.

If your website only has product information pages for example, you’ll struggle to get any volume of free traffic from the search engines. The more content on your blog, the more natural or “organic” traffic you’ll get.

A recent study by Hubspot of 2300 customers, revealed businesses who blogged regularly received 126% more monthly leads from organic search than those who didn’t!

So, how can you  maximise the effectiveness of your blog posts to make sure they’re picked up by the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo?

1) Ensure the title of your post is worded in a way someone might use whilst doing a search ie. “Why Have A Blog As Well As A Website?”!

2) Mention the title of your blog post one or two times in the body of your copy (obviously the above example gave me the perfect reason to do this!)

3) Use “clean url’s” ie www.maverickwebsites.co.uk/why-have-a-blog-as -well-as-a-website is far better and more effective than www.maverickwebsites.co.uk?id=123

So, what the hell do you talk about!?

Well, instead of trying to out-spend, out-sell or out-sponsor/advertise over your competitors (which can be nigh on impossible in some industries unless you have bottomless pockets!), try to out-teachthem. Use your blog to teach and educate your customers and prospects. Again, exactly what I’m doing here!

Whilst ensuring your posts are informative, it’s also vital to use a casual, conversational tone. No one wants to read boring, formal stuff. Pretend you’re talking to a friend (as you should in all copy) and you can’t go too far wrong.

A word of warning though. Achieving success through your blog takes time, patience and persistence – you’re very unlikely to see a huge increase in traffic overnight so you need to stick with it!!

Good luck and happy blogging!