Whether you’re just beginning your online marketing journey or you have an established website and digital brand, content is the king. Just about everyone has a blog and with almost 4.5 million blog posts being published every day it can be a challenge for your firm to stand out.
Whatever worked five years ago in the blogging world isn’t going to work today. That’s why today we’re letting you in on some reliable ways to create brainstorm and create your own blog posts. Join us!
Why Killer Blog Content Is Important
Having a blog is one of the best ways to improve SEO. From headers and images to metadata and keywords the way your blog posts are written and formatted influences your ranking.
But before diving into the technicalities of SEO, remember, the goal should always be to create the best content you can. There are plenty of things you can do to help influence SEO and guide your content, but as long as helping your readers remains the primary objective, then you’ll be headed in the right direction.
We talk a lot about SEO, but blogging is crucial to your overall marketing strategy as well. You may have heard but “content is king” and that’s in more ways than one. Your website content is often the first impression prospects receive. If you work remotely, it is likely that your blog is the main source clients use to get to know you and your business.
Blog posts are a great way to show your knowledge as an advisor and educate your clients. Maybe you work with Millennials and are constantly asked how long it will take to pay off student loans. This is a great opportunity to create a blog post where you can refer prospects and clients to learn more. These types of blog posts are in demand and allow you to show your qualifications. More importantly, they give you the opportunity to build trust with prospects who will be putting their lives in your hands.
Blogging is also a great place to show your firm’s culture. Do you write in the first person, a bit more personal, or third person to stay professional? Do you want to write in a voice that is humorous or straightforward and to the point? Do you want a writing style that harps on family values or strives to serve break-a-way businesses? It’s up to you and how you want your firm and services to be perceived.
How To Create Killer Blog Posts:
1. Do Your Research
Blogging can provide great rewards but only if you do it right!
The first step is to select the keywords you would like to target. If you’re unsure of what keywords to choose or you’re looking for more, free tools like Keywordtool.io, Google Search Console, and Google Keyword Planner can help
Once you’ve chosen your keywords, you’ll want to conduct a reverse search. To do so, simply search your chosen keywords. The content that appears will give you an idea of search intent – the type of content Google believes searchers are looking for.
For example, if you search something and find a variety of videos in the top results, then you know that video content is prioritized for this specific search. However, if you find blog posts within the search, then you know this is a good blog idea. You can go further, but checking the top results. What sort of things do they cover? How is the page formatted? You don’t want to copy these, rather, use them as a window into what Google and other search engines are prioritizing.
Lastly, the search result page can provide additional hints into search intent through the “People also ask” and “Related searches” sections. Found near the middle and bottom of the search page, these locations provide questions and additional keywords related to your search. These can be used within your content to help answer search intent. For example, if you find a question in the “People also ask” section, consider including it word-for-word as a header in your blog.
2. Remain Relevant
When writing, it can be easy to branch off and get off-topic. You may be writing about “Small Everyday Steps to Increase Your Retirement Funds” and then you think of great college planning ideas for parents. You can confuse your reader and yourself.
Blogs provide advisors with a great opportunity to showcase their in-depth knowledge on a subject so stick to that topic and be detailed. A helpful way to stay on topic is by creating an outline of what you want to cover before you write your blog. You’re the expert and you’re readers are coming to you for advice, so be specific and try to write with their point of view in mind. If you have different categories, such as retirement, college planning, and tax planning, you can reflect this on your blog to give you and your reader clarity.
We’re also big believers in brainstorming so if you think of some new blog post ideas during your writing session, start a list.
Twenty Over Ten client, Guelich Capital Management has done a great job of creating strong blog content consistently, and they have created timely content to help their readers during the pandemic with the blog “Should I withdraw funds from my 401k to help with expenses due to COVID 19?”
3. Use The Right Amount of Words
Some sources say shorter blogs are better because your audience doesn’t have time to read. Other sources say longer blogs are ideal because they build credibility, authority, and SERPs.
Since Google dropped the Hummingbird patch, there’s been a new secret ingredient to getting noticed on the Internet: longer content equals higher rankings. Google indicated that content totaling 2,000 words versus 500 or less will rank higher on search engines.
If you don’t have enough quality content to add that length, your blog will ramble fruitlessly and the length won’t help you. The most important thing to remember when blogging is quality. If the topic you are covering only needs 500 words, then that’s all you need to write.
4. Use an Editorial Calendar
Organization and planning is key, especially when you are adding blog writing to your normal financial services duties.
Not only will this hold you accountable but it will be a good place to house all of your brilliant content ideas. In your editorial calendar you can develop monthly themes, individual blog post ideas, and space each post out with enough time in between. Whatever schedule you choose, stay consistent and make sure it is doable for you.
It probably sounds daunting to create a blog post every day, right? Right. We’re not saying you have to blog every single day, especially as you’re just starting out. We recommend posting 4-6 blogs per month as you get started.
Get organized and keep track of your blog content for each month with our editorial calendar template.Get Your FREE Editorial Calendar Template!
5. Look at Your Competition
Looking at your competition is a great way to gain inspiration and ideas. Benchmarking is not a strategy of the past – you’re often speaking to the same audience so take a look at both what works and what doesn’t.
You can check out their top most read posts and find trends of why they are popular. Then create similar blog content ideas but make them even better. What was your competition missing? How could they have provided more value to the reader? Keep those points in mind and write a blog post that encompasses everything your prospects want to know and start emulating your competition.
6. Seek Help
You don’t have to go at this alone as there are multiple tools out there that you can utilize to boost your content. Some of them are:
Content Assist
We offer useful tools, such as Content Assist to all Twenty Over Ten users so that if you are struggling to come up with content ideas for your blog, you can use our pre-made content and edit it to make it your own. With Content Assist, you can choose from different categories, such as retirement, home-buying, young adults, business and much more. Once you have chosen which blog that you want to use, advisors can easily customize and edit the content to add your unique voice, keywords to fit your niche or you can use it as-is.
Ready to Create Killer Blogs?
Blogging is a crucial part of any inbound marketing strategy, and we know that it can be difficult to create blog content consistently while still running an advisory firm and keeping track of everything else that you have on your plate. If you find yourself in a rut or not knowing where to begin, then these simple tips can get you on the right track to begin blogging or boost a content strategy that you already had in place.
Note: This article was originally published on September 11th, 2020. It has been updated to ensure consistency.
Struggling With What Content to Share on Social Media or via Email?
We are offering access to our content for advisors to use via Lead Pilot for 7-days completely free (even on our month-to-month plans).
About the author
Blair Kelly
Blair is a digital marketing assistant at Twenty Over Ten and has a passion for uncovering what drives online traffic and the highest engagement. She follows more animals on Instagram than humans and her greatest achievement is her daughter, Grey.
