This is a guest blog post by Matt Carter at MGX Mindshare.
If you’ve read other articles about how to get started writing a blog for your organization, you already know how important setting up a blog is so you can get more traffic and backlinks pointing to your site.
One of the most common things I hear from people hesitant to get started with blogging is how to start a blog in a “boring” industry. “How do I write a blog about boring stuff?”
This is an excellent question that many people encounter when they start to set up a blog for the first time. It’s hard to make forklifts or pillowcases seem exciting to the everyday consumer.
Luckily though, there is a way for you to take even the most mundane of topics, and spin it into a helpful, educational, and worthwhile blog that will garner you:
- regular subscribers to your blog
- miscellaneous searchers from all over the web
- shareable content (that will give you social media mentions and shares)
In today’s article, I’m going to show you how to take a boring subject like forklifts, for example, and turn that topic into a blog that will (over time) bring you readers and hopefully, backlinks.
Broaden your focus to broaden your potential audience
If you’re stuck wondering how you can write about a “boring” topic, try to broaden the topic itself, to help you frame the topic in a different way.
So, using our forklifts example, let’s move this topic outward. Since most people are not going to know enough about forklifts, they probably won’t be engaged and entertained sufficiently enough to want to visit your blog regularly.
But, if you created a blog that dealt with general warehouse logistics, or moving, for example, you’ve opened up your blog to all kinds of possibilities.
You now have many more topics to write about, and broader appeal to casual web searchers that might find your blog while searching for terms related to topics covered on your blog.
The bottom line is that more people are going to want to visit your blog, which is the most important part of all of this.
Answering common customer questions is a great way to get more search traffic
There are over 16 million searches being done on Google every hour. People are searching for all sorts of topics, and some of those people are looking for the very thing you’re trying to sell. So how do you reach these people?
Writing blog posts that answer questions are a fantastic way of getting you a slice of that search traffic.
People use Google to search for answers and information, and Google is always hungry for fresh, relevant articles to deliver to their users.
Answering questions often produces keyword-heavy articles (Google likes that). In many cases, articles that answer questions face less ranking competition (meaning your articles are more likely to rank higher). This is because questions are incredibly varied and very specific. Both of these traits make blog articles answering questions a powerful way of choosing topics.
Now, let’s get back to our forklift example. Since we’ve moved our forklifts topic outward, we also need to bring people searching for “moving” related topics into finding our forklifts blog. The easiest way to do that is to focus on keywords and questions related to our blog.
You can use the Wordtracker tool to do research on keywords to see which terms have high traffic, and which ones don’t. Then, you can use that information to help strengthen your keywords to help push more people to find your blog.
Use tools like Quora and Yahoo Answers to find relevant questions using keywords related to your topic. You can search particular keywords, and then use that information to make your blog reach even more people through Google.
Pratik Dholakiya of Copyblogger recommends using a method that I call “5W1H” (Who/What/When/Where/Why+How) method for further defining your topic. For example, forklifts might look something like this:
- Who invented the first forklift?
- When are forklifts bought the most?
- Where are forklifts made?
- What are the craziest things ever moved by forklifts?
- Why are forklifts so common in warehouses?
- How do I know if a forklift would be better than doing it manually?
Notice how these questions have reframed the topic into a more interesting style that is easier to digest for an audience that probably knows next to nothing about forklifts?
Provide human interest stories to be more relatable and engaging
What better way to humanize something as lifeless and dull as forklifts than to connect with the human element of your readers?
First, try covering the local news for topics that relate to your business (ONLY if you’re a local business). You can use the local news to help drive attention to your blog, since it’s covering the same topic, and “newsjacking”, as it’s called, is a popular way to drive traffic to your blog based on the news cycle.
Next, try writing about “a day in the life of Forklift company”. Write a blog that puts a face to the human side of the business. This will not only help you engage more with reader, but it will also help customers and potential customers see the faces behind the names of your organization.
Interviewing your customers is a great way to drive relevant traffic to your blog. For instance, if you sell a forklift to someone, ask if you can interview them about their uses of the product. This shows you engaging with real people, as well as finding out more about how forklifts are used in different ways by people from all walks of life.
Finally, you can write about your opinions as it relates to your topic. This is an excellent way to give your topic a more relatable feel to your audience.
Remember, SHAREABLE content is not the same as INTERESTING content
Think about the articles that you’ve personally felt the need to share with others. What characteristics did they have?
Shareable content is what’s going to broaden the reach your blog has to a wider audience. The more niche your blog’s focus, the harder it’s going to be for your readers to share your content.
“Fun Facts” are much more shareable to other people than Wikipedia articles, for example. You can use “Fun Facts” to drive readers to your blog, by giving them something interesting and lighthearted, that makes them want to share it with others.
Infographics are another great way to drive traffic to your blog, as well as get shared. Create infographics that lay out all the interesting facts about forklifts, and you can revel in all the shares you’ll receive as a result.
Keep in mind: this WILL take time
Good things come to those with patience. Like an exercise or diet regimen, blogging and content marketing takes time. You’re not going to see results immediately.
It will be challenging, and it will be time-consuming, and it will take a long time for the results to appear.
But if you’re in a boring industry, these are some good tactics you can use to make the topic more accessible to people. If you can provide people with shareable content, they’re going to share it.