If you have a small local business such as a restaurant, hardware shop, internet cafe or printer supplier, did you know that by adding a blog to your internet marketing strategy can improve your Google rankings and help you generate new business? This always sounds good when you read it, but how do you start with a blog marketing campaign and what should you write about?

It’s a fact that if you regularly add keyword rich content to your website you can improve your organic local rankings when optimised correctly and generate traffic. It’s good to have a website, but if it’s just a business brochure of what you are doing it won’t do the trick. You need to constantly add new content to your website to get the attention of Google and your target audience. You can do this by writing about your business, news, trends, customer reviews, products and services that you are offering. The hardest part is to get started with your blogging journey.

How do you start?

Blog marketing campaign strategy

What to write about: Start by selecting relevant topics related to your business that your target audience will find interesting. Always focus on educating your readers instead of pushing a hard sale. If you are a local restaurant, publish articles about where you are situated, your menu, specials you are currently running and why you are unique.

The key with blogging is to find relevant topics that you care about and that your target audience wants to read.

Keywords: This is still key with blogging, content marketing and digital marketing. Do some keyword research and put yourself in your clients shoes. What are they searching for? How do you want to be found? Create a list of these keywords that are relevant to your topic and use this list as a guide when you are writing new blog posts.

How to write blog posts to be published: It’s good practice that each of your blog posts are focused around one idea and topic. That means that you should choose one main keyword phrase that you can use in the heading of your blog post, title, sub headings and the first paragraph. Keep your blog posts at a minimum of 300 words. It can be longer, but it should be focused and on topic.