The term “article marketing blog” is a murky one. What does it mean? Is it important for your business? There is no simple answer—and in many cases, you are going to find a lot of interpretations of what article marketing and article marketing blogs are. However, there are a few foundational concepts, and from there, you can fine-tune what an article marketing blog is to you.
What is Article Marketing?
Article marketing is exactly what it sounds like: It is promoting an article to gain more customers. That’s because, in general, article marketing is part of the business landscape. Article marketing can take on many forms. For example, to market your article you may:
- Formulate the article as news or a press release
- Offer your article as a guest blog
- Write your article for your blog to enhance the customer experience
- Promote your article using tools like social media
There are a lot of ways articles become involved with article marketing. However, to be effective, it’s essential to identify what it is, how you choose to execute it, and how to execute it regularly.
What is a Blog?
A blog can be thought of as a regularly updated web page. It often contains current information, articles, announcements, and other tidbits of information. Originally, blogs were web logs, shortened to blogs, and used personally to share thoughts and details about your life or day. Now it has become a powerful marketing tool as well, and a way many people make money (think of a food/recipe blog).
Businesses use blogs as a way to draw traffic and visitors, to engage with their customers, and to create an SEO-rich website. In an effective blog, articles and information are well-thought-out and posted consistently. There is also typically a push to tie it all together with an overall campaign or promotional efforts.
How Does Article Marketing and a Blog Work Together?
Blogs are a great place to practice article marketing. In essence, your posts become an article marketing blog. Of course, that’s when it’s done with some forethought and strategies. An article marketing blog needs a few essential components. The first and most important is quality. Slap-together content doesn’t work in a time where there is an overabundance of information. Other things to think about are:
- Using article marketing on your blog to keep customers up-to-date, or share current deals
- Using the blog to give tips or answers to frequently asked customer questions
- Using the blog to offer solutions to common issues customers face
- Becoming a credible expert source and building trust
- Using the blog to interact with customers or potential customers
How to Create Effective Article Marketing Blog Posts and Where to Use Them
If you want to use a blog for article marketing, then it’s time to conduct a strategy session. You’ll want to come up with topics, keywords and phrases, identify a good length for your articles, and find someone who will write them well in your brand’s voice and style. You’ll also want to optimize formatting and create an editorial calendar to maintain consistency.
Topics come from many different sources, but when in doubt, turn to your customers or potential customers. What do they want to know? What problems affect them and what solutions can you offer? Do you have anything you believe your customers should know about?
Another element to consider is how to promote the articles outside the blog itself. Can you offer the article as a guest post somewhere? Can you share it with other industry professionals on LinkedIn? Will you promote it on your social media platforms? It’s not enough to simply write an excellent article—you have to get it out there as well. That’s when it becomes effective article marketing.
Think of article marketing and blogs as a symbiotic relationship. It plays a central role in a bigger marketing picture. To create an effective article marketing blog, you have to look further than just the article and blog—it’s how you tie it together with other support efforts that make it successful.
