“Adding a blog post to your website can increase traffic by as much as 434%” TechJury [1]
Planning, researching, writing, editing, and sharing your blog can take a lot of time, particularly if you are not an experienced writer. However, blogging is still a wonderful way to share your knowledge, inform your audience and build trust with the people you want to buy from you.
Every day there are 227 million searches on Google, approximately a 5.4billion per day, other search engines are available. Every time we search for something the results, we see are blog content, all the time we are using the internet we are consuming content, your clients and prospects are no different; they are looking for content that tells them about you, how you work, the service you offer, the benefits of working with you, the types of people you help, the types of insurance you sell and why so your building a picture for them so they are more likely to trust you with their insurance.
It is not enough now to just have a bog-standard website with some bland information and a contact page, to create more leads and win business you must be creating good quality content.
It takes time and skill to create the different types of content your audience wants to see, so making the most of the content you create by re-purposing it is a great way to share more of what you do with more people who will buy from you.
How long it takes to write a blog
Orbit Media research shows that it takes slightly over 4 hours to write a blog, the average blog is 1,400 words. I’m guessing that if you are running a busy insurance brokerage or insurance business you’ll probably find it hard to find a block of four hours during your working day where you can work uninterrupted for between 4-5 hours, am I right? So, this could pose a problem, but let's imagine for this exercise that you have managed to write a blog post.
Why you should write a blog
According to TechJury 77% of internet users read blogs, and adding a blog post to your website can increase traffic by as much as 434%, if that wasn’t a reason to have one, I don’t know what is. But the reasons to blog go a little deeper than just the stats, here’s how:
👩🎓 Educator - you have a great opportunity to explain complex insurance simply and insightfully to the people who need it.
👍 Trust - we are currently experiencing a huge trust deficit and insurance is no exception to this, your blog helps build trust with your audience, not overnight but over time.
💕 Relationships - you can use your blog to build relationships with clients and prospects but show that you genuinely want to engage with them and offer them valuable and topical information for free. By creating a supply of shareable content, you can build your reputation as trustworthy, honest, and human. Not just another insurance broker.
🥇 Competition - you can shape how you compete with other brokers, but by creating bespoke blog content you can produce engaging, insightful content that delivers personality and value to the reader, rather than the bland, generic, and sterilised content we see churned out daily.
🌍💻Web Presence - I don't think there have ever been more people on the internet than there are now, and buyers certainly expect companies to be publishing regular content. Your blog will help drive more traffic to your website.
How to share your blog
Once you’ve written your blog and published it on your website, you want as many people to read it as possible, sharing your blog can take as much time as writing it, a great way to get more people to your blog is to use social media to promote it, Orbit Media report that 97% of bloggers are using social media to boost blog engagement, using these platforms can help drive traffic to your website [2].
Using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can help boost the number of readers and encourage first-hand feedback and engagement on your posts.
Here are 3 quick ways to write posts to go with your content;
Write a caption for your post that explains what your content is about, how it helps the reader, and giving a quick synopsis get much better reach than posts simply announcing the arrival of a new piece of content.
If you can include an interesting statistic or a quote from the post to generate interest and comments.
Ask a question, for example, in a post about Directors & Officers insurance you could ask “Did you know you need D&O cover?” or “What surprised you about the information in this blog post?” to get readers thinking and engaging when these conversations start, you’re creating warm leads.
Why you should repurpose your blog
There are many benefits to repurposing content, the most obvious is that it saves time, helps you stay relevant, can help you reach new audiences who might consume your content in different ways, and helps your SEO.
How to repurpose your blog
Create a LinkedIn article or white paper - copy your blog post into LinkedIn as an article and share that with your network, you can link it to your website in the post or extend the post and turn it into a white paper to share with your network, ask them for comment or feedback.
Create a round-up post of blogs on a similar topic - do you have posts you could bundle together into a round-up post? I've done this with posts on the theme of copywriting but you could do it on types of liability insurance, insurance a small business needs or claims posts.
Turn a blog post into a video - this isn't for the feint hearted and can take time and skill but you could also just record yourself giving the top tips from the post or the key takeaways, you don't need to read it out to camera. The video can be added to the blog on your website and then shared as a social media post across all your accounts.
Create a presentation - use the key points to create a slide deck, you can use Canva for this, and share them with your audience.
Create an infographic - is there a process you're explaining or a set of tips that would work well as an inforgraphic? There are loads of ideas on Pinterest and free templates you can use in Canva.
Re-post on social media - not everyone will see all of your content so be prepared to repeat yourself. I create a number of images when I create a blog post, some are text and some are images or a mixture, see what works for you but I often post multiple ways about content I've created, to keep it fresh but also to get it in front of more people.
Refresh an old post and re-publish it - I did this recently, I'd written a post about insurance for bloggers and after apearing on a podcast I re-read it and I have ot admit it needed some work, so I re-wrote it and shared it to coincide with the publication of the podcast. What have you already got that could do with a refresh?
Create shorter social media posts/ graphics using quotes or stats from your blog post - this is a great tip and one I often use, I'll pull out an interesting quote or stat from a post and use it as an image or text post. People love stats!
Also, see what works for you and get feedback from your audience, ask a client next time you see them, what social media platforms are they on and do they watch video, listen to podcasts etc. They will be your greatest source of ideas!
And lastly, enjoy it, your content should be enjoyable to create and not feel like a chore!
Need More Help?
If you need more help, writing your blog or creating social media content, drop me a line, and let’s have a chat about how I can help you.
Sources: [1] https://techjury.net/blog/blogging-statistics/#gref
[2] Orbit Media
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