As the New Year approaches, we probably started thinking about our 2022 resolutions. Be it finally losing weight, drinking less or going to the gym semi-regularly, we are sure that you can make it.

But what if your New Year’s resolution is to start blogging more consistently? As fun as it is, we know it can also be highly stressful. That’s why we made sure to give you our own personalised holiday present: our updated guide for the best blogging in 2022.

Aren’t you excited? We surely are!

Blogging Why Should It Be Your Top Resolution For 2022?

Most people have, at some point, enjoyed writing about their lives in a blog. Amongst younger generations, it was almost like keeping an online diary! 

But there’s much more to blogging than just writing about your everyday life. So if you have a thriving business but you still haven’t found the time -or motivation- to start a professional blog, here’s why it should be your top priority in 2022…

#1 It’s Good For Traffic…

One of the main things that blogging can effectively do for your business is driving incredible traffic to your website, increasing your chances of conversions. 

Why does that happen? Well, primarily because of the incredible power of a well-tailored SEO strategy. Upon starting a blog, it’s fundamental that you know what keywords you want to target so that you can immediately start seeing positive results on your organic traffic.

Once you decide to include the right keywords, your target audience will be more likely to find you through search engines and then…

#2 It Builds Credibility…

Blogging consistently has its perks. For example, it’s an incredible tool for building credibility and engaging with your audience.

Finding a niche where your opinion is needed and answering some of the most asked questions while giving your own tips and tricks and raising awareness on your brand has proven to be one of the most effective ways to gain authority.

How many times have you searched for a specific blogger’s opinion on something you know they are experts about?

That happens because of the credibility they’ve built by writing on the matter.

#3 It’s Cost Effective…

One of the reasons you should be blogging is that it’s one of the most cost-effective forms of content marketing. While many still think of traditional advertising as the most successful way of gaining visibility, there are a few reasons why in 2022, this won’t be the case. The first one is that blogging is not a transient form of content.

While a billboard campaign works on a time constraint schedule, upscaling your sales for a limited time frame, a blog continues driving traffic and visibility long after it has been published.

The second reason is that blogging is relatively cheap. 

Shooting a professional campaign with models, photographers, and makeup artists can cost anywhere in the thousand of pounds range. But, on the other hand, a blog stays on longer and costs incredibly less to keep. 

#4 It Helps Build a Community Amongst Your Customers…

When working in developing your brand’s identity, there are certain things you need to keep in mind: the first one is, obviously, your community. Customers enjoy the idea of being part of a tribe, and by posting consistently, you increase the chances that this happens.

By establishing your authority in your niche, your customers will find it easier to trust you and think that they are part of something bigger. Something that you created with your words!

#5 It Generates Leads…

What are leads? Leads are prospect clients. Using SEO and writing compelling content significantly increases your visibility, thus attracting more potential clients. 

Statistics for 2021 showed that marketers who use blogging in their strategy have noticed an increment in leads of the 67% more than others who don’t.

In short, blogging is good for sales. 

#6 It Helps You Build A Brand Identity…

Your identity is the result of many things. Experiences, customers, products… And the content you write is the best way to help other people and potential clients get to know you and what you have to offer.

To build your brand identity, blogging works in two directions: the first one is increasing your visibility, and the second one is describing your products and services. 

Once you’ve attracted a conspicuous part of your target audience, you have the chance to talk more about your brand and your core values. 

And that helps you build your identity, as well as helping your audience relate to you.

#7 It’s Great For SEO…

SEO is one of the only tools you truly need before getting started on a marketing strategy. With billions of websites live on the internet, you want to find a way that works to get visibility and have your audience come to you as soon as they are looking for something that you have to offer. 

And nothing can do that better than SEO! 

Among the powerful results you can see from putting the right SEO strategy in place, you can find visibility, conversions, and rankings: all that you could ever wish for.

But one of the most important things you need to get your SEO to do what you want is words.

With keywords being one of the most influential factors to keep in mind for your SEO strategy to work, you must start blogging. Working on planning a keyword strategy for your posts will help you reach all of your business goals for 2022.

#8 It Improves Your Backlinking…

How many times have you found something you needed while browsing on someone else’s website? Linking to other pages is quite common, especially on social media. It counts as a polite way of referring your audience to someone you think might answer their questions in a particular area. 

The more your website is mentioned on other relevant pages, the higher your chances of increasing your rankings.

Think of backlinking as a networking practice for SEO. 

If you build your authority in a specific niche and collaborate with others doing the same, your audiences are more likely to trust both of you. And that increases your visibility and leads, as well as your rankings. I mean, it’s a win-win!

Why Is Blogging So Stressful?

As valuable and rewarding as blogging is, it’s undoubtedly incredibly stressful and tiresome. And, if you are basing your marketing strategy on it, your stakes are incredibly high. No doubt that you might feel stressed about it! 

There are, however, many reasons why might be putting of your business’s blog, such as:

#1 It Takes Time 

When you are in charge of your own business, you work on a tight schedule. You are trying to fit in meetings, PR, product research and management in a 24 hours day. But, honestly, we understand if the last thing you want to be doing at the end of a long day is to sit at your desk for a couple of extra hours to write about your business. 

There’s more to blogging than just sitting peacefully and writing: you need to start by doing SEO research to know what keywords to use, then you have to find out what is it that your niche is talking about at the moment and, at the end of it all, you get to write. Sounds stressful, doesn’t it? It is.

#2 You Are Not At All Convinced Of Your Writing Abilities

You’ve always enjoyed writing for therapeutic purposes, and maybe you are more than capable of crafting a compelling piece of writing. But you are not sure that you can do it, which blocks you every time you want to write something. 

Ever read about “Writer’s block”? Stress can be highly detrimental to your blogging efforts, preventing you from starting altogether. 

#3 You Don’t Know What To Write About

Writing is fun and is often perceived as liberating… When it’s yourself that you are writing about. When your marketing strategy depends on your ability to identify trending topics and write about them swiftly, it’s incredibly stressful. 

#4 You Don’t Know How To Make It Work

Writing and blogging for a business are two different things that require different levels of effort. 

For example, how do you make your strategy work? And how do you measure if it’s effectively writing? 

This significantly increases the stress factor in all of your writing endeavours.

#5 It’s A Recurring Task

Writing your own business’ blogs is not a one-shot activity. It could be if you only had to physically write about a subject that someone else has picked out for you after careful research, but it isn’t when you are the only one in charge of it. 

You will have to plan, research, see how updated your previous posts are, measure your results… And all of this on top of your regular working day as a manager.

What Can I Do Next? 

Fitting in a flourishing blogging activity on top of a demanding job as a business owner or manager can easily take out all of the joy from writing. That is why we’ve developed our perfect guide to help you with both…

Our Guide To Blogging In 2022

Here are a few simple steps you can follow to make blogging easier next year:

Plan Ahead

Create a 12-month blog plan that includes a weekly post. Do your SEO research, find the terms you want to rank for and come up with a title that hits one of those terms each week. Add LSI terms to complement the main keyword for each post, so you have them ready for use. 

It’s important to blog weekly if you’re serious about gaining traction. Of course, you can get away with less than that if you’re only interested in keeping your site ‘ticking over’. But if you want to CLIMB the ranks, you need a weekly update. 

Statistically, long-form posts of 2500-3000 words are the most powerful in terms of SEO. Of course, again, you can get away with around 600 words in your weekly blog, but if you’re really serious about competing, long-form content is the way to go. 

Batch Where Possible 

It’s much easier to block off a full day and write all your content for a month and schedule it all done together. That way, you don’t have to think about it. The alternative is trying to find time once a week. You have the added issue of remembering what needs doing and when. If it’s batched and scheduled, you will be entirely consistent. 

Consistency is vitally important to gain traction. If you promote your business in fits and starts, you will go two steps forward and one back.

Do All Your Graphics At The Start 

Again, you will find that batching all the images and graphics needed for your posts in 2022 is a lot easier if you do it in one go. Even if all you do is go through the schedule for the year, find a few stock photos that will be relevant for each post, size them as needed, and pop them in a folder. At least that way, you have them ready and waiting when you come to upload the piece.

It makes the upload process far more manageable. It can also save you money. If you don’t have a subscription to something like Shutterstock, getting a fixed number of images in one go saves you from subscribing to a service that you don’t really need. Shutterstock, for example, gives you far more images in a month than you’d possibly need just to cover your blogs.

Create A Checklist For Promotion

Think ahead of all the ways you’ll promote each blog. Write yourself a checklist, and every week as your latest blog comes out, work through it point by point. 

If you’re promoting on social media, you can also batch the posts you’ll use to promote your blogs and schedule them in advance, as you write the blogs.

Outsource

 If all that sounds like far too much effort, you can outsource all or part of the experience. For example, we offer a 12-Month Content Marketing Plan that will completely cover step 1 for you. We can also provide training to teach you how to write your blogs more effective. And of course, we also offer comprehensive blogging packages that will cover absolutely everything (including Shutterstock images and graphics!). If you’d like a chat about how we can help you with your blog in 2022, get in touch…

Book Your FREE Consultation Now…