Whether a political leader, school teacher or business owner, none of us have the secret handbook of how to continue with day to day business during a global crisis. But thanks to the kind nature of humanity, people all over are pulling together to support and lift each other up with the existing skills and talents we already have, whether that’s through online training, virtual concerts or even just sharing a laugh on a video call.
As a virtual marketing team, our passion is in marketing and in generating success for businesses both online and offline so we wanted to share some of our own knowledge to make sure your marketing doesn’t take a backseat as the UK economy and businesses begin to reopen.
Here’s some advice we have on blogging during a pandemic.
Dos and Don’ts
DO find logical connections to trending topics. They’re trending for a reason – because people are interested. If you’re in a position to talk about a topic and offer some value with your professional knowledge, then the stage is yours!
DON’T forget who your audience are. You may be an experienced marathon runner bursting with advice for beginners but if your target market is over 80, then maybe your business website isn’t the best outlet for that topic. Think about subjects that would cater for existing and future customers during this current crisis.
DO be sensitive with your writing. Political views and opinions don’t belong in your business blog posts, even if they are relevant. Millions of people are dealing with this pandemic in a variety of different ways so it’s important to be sensitive towards individual situations.
However, DON’T pretend this pandemic isn’t happening. It has drastically affected businesses and lives, so to skim past and pretend it isn’t happening will not only leave your customers confused about how you are handling it as a responsible business, but also makes you seem disconnected from current affairs.
What Can I Write About?
Depending on your business, this is going to vary massively. Before establishing your content ideas, we recommend the following:
- Take note of what’s trending. Right now, the word on everyone’s mouth is Coronavirus but with a bit of research, you may also find some other popular topics include sleep troubles, fitness videos, Father’s day, shops re-opening. Find something relevant for you and write it down.
- Think about some longer-tail key phrases you’d like to rank for on Google. For example, if you are a hairdressing salon, you may want to rank for “where to get my hair cut after lockdown is lifted”.
- Finally, for some final inspiration, take your keywords and topics and pop them into a tool such as Answer the Public. This website will shoot out a variety of content ideas to inspire you.
With the 3 starter steps above, you should be able to obtain some ideas to last you at least a few months. We recommend putting these into a content calendar with some clear deadlines to keep you motivated.
Help Others Out
Whilst the purpose of your blog page may be to engage your audience and generate leads or conversions, giving others a mention and linking to their website is not only a kind thing to do during these difficult times, but could also help with your backlink profile and make your website more credible (SEO talk!).
You can have a think about what other businesses may interest your customers and link to them wherever it naturally fits in. For example, if you’re blogging on a gym’s website, your customers may be interested in some recommended places to purchase sporting clothes. To take this a step further, you could get in touch with the company you’re recommending to see if you can offer an exclusive discount code and get a reciprocal link back.
The Practicalities of Blogging
A question we tend to get is “how long should a blog be?”. Whilst there’s lots of different advice on the internet, the most important advice we can offer is that it’s quality over quantity. We recommend as a ball park to aim for 800 words, which should take 1 – 2 hours to write dependant on how much research you need to do, but if you write a super high-quality blog post with relevant links, great headings, appropriate imagery and a catching title, then it doesn’t matter if the word count is slightly less or more.
The benefits of blogging doesn’t stop after you publish it on your website. You are then presented with the opportunity to push it out and engage with your audience. Are you active on social media? Do you have a mailing list it can go to? Are you a member of any groups of forums that may benefit from the blog? Take some time to consider the best places to promote you latest post.
Stay Healthy, Stay Positive, and Keep Going
Are you inspired and ready to start, or continue, blogging for your business during this pandemic? The main message is to keep going, support each other and thrive in the development of your digital presence.
At All Things Marketing, one of the services we offer is writing your blog content on a pay-as-you-go basis. To find out more, get in touch.
