5 easy blog tips that win you visibility and traction
Blogging is the mother of all content marketing strategies. A blog will build your brand, drive continuous leads, boost SEO rankings, establish you as an expert and feed your social media channels consistently. These 5 tips make it easy for any independent agent to benefit from this very effective form of content marketing.
1. Brainstorm topics
Selecting relevant topics is a great way to improve your organic search performance. Find out what other agencies are posting about. Have a look at the whole year and select topics related to seasonal events or weather patterns. Select a relevant keyword for each post like “cyber insurance” or “flood preparedness tips,” and repeat it 5 times in the post to improve SEO. Here’s a good mix of blog post types. Bullet out a few possible topics for each.
- Q&As. What questions do you answer for clients over and over again? Answer them directly and demonstrate your expertise.
- Myths and misconceptions. Think about all the mistaken ideas you’ve heard about insurance and clear them up.
- Local spotlights. What business owner might you interview? What local events or initiatives can you write about?
- News bytes. Think of news items that tie into the kinds of insurance you sell. Weather-related news is a good start.
2. Create a calendar and batch content
Content marketing is all about consistency. Posting regularly gets you more visibility and more followers. Search engines love fresh content, too, so consistency gives your SEO rankings a leg up. Create a calendar for yourself that includes blog post title, date, where you intend to post, any keywords you use and how much visibility or engagement the post gets. Batching just means taking a day or two to create multiple posts in one go.
3. Hone your expertise
A blog is a place where you can really shine as an industry expert who knows everything there is to know about insurance. Do a little research so you can effectively communicate your expertise in a voice that’s helpful and knowledgeable. If you are looking to serve emerging specialty markets like, for example, Hemp or Cyber coverage, become a MacNeill agent today.
4. Try your hand at vlogging
People love video, so if you’re not afraid of the camera, this is a great way to get big visibility. Q&As, expert tips and interviews with locals all work well in this format. You can even turn your existing blog posts into video scripts. Remember that it’s the written content that gets you the SEO rankings, so be sure to include some text with a few keywords along with the video. (Need some ideas for video content?).
5. Connect your blog to social
Blogging feeds your marketing strategy and gets you wide visibility and traction. Posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social channels is vital, but your blog is your own proprietary content. It’s not subject to anyone else’s rules. So it’s always a good idea to start by blogging and then publish across all your active channels to win new audiences. Blog posts are also a perfect addition to any email marketing strategy.
Want to expand your offering? Stay in front of trends by looking at our Seasonal Hot Markets monthly email. Remember, you can offer wider coverage when you partner with MacNeill Group. We can help with multiple lines of business.
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