Ok, ok, I know you’ve heard this before. But let me say it again: every business should have a blog, and more importantly, be engaged in blogging.

While many business owners have been resistant when it comes to blogs, thinking they are either a waste of time or way too much work, some of the Internet’s most prolific bloggers and leading experts say blogging is definitely here to stay.

According to a 2018 HubSpot survey, 55 percent of the content marketers who responded said that blogging was their number one form of inbound marketing.

But like all things these days, the art of blogging is changing. In a noisy world, we must all be prepared to shift gears.

According to blogger and leading content marketing expert Neil Patel, the trajectory of content marketing is expected to change in 2019 that will, in some ways, make it harder for businesses to gain the attention they are seeking.

On his weekly podcast, Patel says that much of the blog content online is regarded as “old and has existed for a while.” Even a blog post that is brand new will have a hard time standing up against similar posts that were published weeks, sometimes months ago, simply because the content isn’t unique enough.

The downside is that Google isn’t ranking these blogs high enough, their traffic is waning and they’re not getting the traction on social media that they need.

Out with the Old, In with the New

“Content marketing is played out,” adds Patel, referring to the millions of blog posts that are regurgitated on a daily basis. It’s not that it won’t work anymore, he says, but in 2019, it needs to be “fresh, to be cutting edge.”

So, how can you do that?

Patel offers some solutions.

Be the Problem Solver

While you’ll want to write about all the great things you’re selling, don’t do it. Instead, Patel says you should think about the problems that your customers and potential clients are experiencing and then show your readers how you can help (if they use your products and/or services of course!).

That’s really all your customers care about, and the practice will build trust as well.

The real trick to this is figuring out their problems before they realize that you are the perfect person/business to solve them. In other words, getting there before someone else in your industry does.

In a recent blog post, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing says that when his company works with businesses, he encourages them to write down all of their customers’ problems and challenges, but also to include that on the homepage of their websites.

“The biggest thing on their homepage should be: ‘Here’s your biggest problem. Here’s our promise to solve it.’ I don’t think that anybody wants to pass Go until they’ve been able to make that connection,” Jantsch adds.

Rather than trying to second-guess what the specific problems are, even if you hear them every day, it’s always a good idea to do some research.

And the Internet is a wonderful source, if we know where to look.

What Questions are People Asking?

The first thing most people do when they have a problem is to turn to Google for answers, right? So why wouldn’t businesses do the same thing when looking for the specific problems their customers might be having?

Perhaps, it’s just too obvious.

One of the online tools I like to use is called Answer the Public. It’s a cool site that gives users a wealth of information on what people are typing into the Google search bar.

In addition to that, the results from any phrase or sentence you input will give you ideas in the form of questions, comparisons, even results that start with prepositions.

Any small business could get a wealth of blogging material from the site.

That’s not to say that you won’t need to fully flesh out the ideas you get from Answer the Public, but it is a good starting point.

Ask your Current Clients

Too often, businesses kind of leave things to chance, hoping that they are delivering an acceptable level of service when behind it all, the customer is unhappy and is only looking for an opportunity to jump ship.

With that in mind, how about conducting short interviews with your customers to discover their exact pain points? You could talk to them face to face, by phone or by email, or you could create the easy-to-use tool Survey Monkey. It’s a good exercise to do every few months, or at least once a year, just to get a pulse for how well your business is doing.

Customer Reviews Can Reveal a Lot

If you’re in the kind of business where customers can post reviews online, negative ones can sometimes present an opportunity. In addition to offering to solve such problems graciously, there’s a chance to turn that negative review into a new blog post.

You might not solve the problem that your negative reviewer is giving you right away, but you can prevent future situations like that from happening again.

Blogging Platforms

Once you get enough blog ideas from the strategies above, it’s time to create your blog.

Patel suggests that when creating a corporate/business blog, you should decide who will be writing the blog and what voice you want them to take when writing posts.

Ideally, the content should be conversational in nature. That way, it will hold your reader’s attention. Remember to keep paragraphs short and include lots of images. Adding a photo and a bio helps to validate the blog.

While WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, there are other platforms to choose from, including Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and more.

In addition to blogging on any of the platforms above, Patel says businesses should also be using Facebook, Medium, LinkedIn or Tumblr as other avenues for traffic-building. Always link back to your own website, he suggests.

Hit Publish, Then What?

Even after you hit publish, there’s no time to sit back and relax and expect people to come flocking to your blog. You need to draw them in with your own efforts.

Smartblogger suggests you send out a teaser email to your list, giving them the first paragraph or two of your blog and then direct them to the actual blog post.

Other strategies include reaching out to influencers in your industry to see if they might share your post. You can find them at BuzzSumo by clicking on the Influencers tab. Being on Quora is another helpful resource since you can highlight your industry expertise in front of that site’s curious audience.

The options to get your content out there are endless.

Have you added blogging to your marketing efforts yet? If so, let me know.