2020 has been an unforgettable year for everyone, from a personal to a professional stance. We have experienced significant shifts in technology, how we interact, communicate, and do business.
So, how is 2021 going to change the blogging world?
Let’s take a look.
The short answer to get blogging right in 2021 is to continue using catchy titles, engage your audience with content that offers value, adding estimated reading time to the posts, create strong CTAs, and continue to push out more content.
Immediate Changes in 2021
Blogging has always been one of the strongest pillars of marketing. It provides an opportunity to engage with your audience and provide content that supports your products and services. Blogging can also utilize SEO strategies to grow organic traffic and push your ranking higher on search engines.
Visiting a page without a current blog might give the impression that the company is inactive and disengaged from their customer base.
Companies are hassling to adapt to the new ‘pandemic normal’ and continue generating revenues and growth. Blogging is becoming even more prominent. More people spend time online and shop online than ever before.
According to the United Nations UNCTAD report titled Covid19 and E-Commerce, we see that consumers in emerging economies are shifting to online shopping. The report shows how online shopping has increased up to 10% points across most product categories. Therefore, companies need to upgrade their content marketing strategy and emphasize content marketing to compete for customers online.
Having a clear understanding of how blogging works and blogging best practices is becoming more critical every day. Companies generally rely on content agencies with dedicated years researching, learning, and adopting online trends for their content needs.
Regardless of whether you will be choosing an agency or tackling the ‘blogging adventures of 2021’ alone, it is always in your best interest to know the basics.
The good news for those who have already invested big in their blogging strategies, the results were instant in 2020, with more views, impressions, and ultimately more leads being generated.
Essential Blogging Guidelines and Tips for 2021
For those entering the blogging market now, we will cover the essentials briefly below.
What is Blogging?
For companies, a blog is a section on the website populated with articles relevant to the company’s products or services. For example, suppose the company is selling educational material. In that case, the blog is populated with articles supporting the product, the industry, and all surrounding relevant data that helps the reader trust the company and become a client.
What Can a Blog Include?
Many companies utilize their blogs to publish stories relevant to their products or services, insights, tips, opinion pieces, and general content to help with their SEO strategy. The ultimate goal is to bring traffic to the blog, build trust between the reader and the company, and eventually convert readers to clients.
Top examples of popular blog posts include:
General information posts
Listicles
Infographics
News
Testimonials/client stories
How to Create a High-Performing Blog
There is a lot of content out there! So how can you stand out?
What is the key to writing engaging blog posts so that your clients return for more?
What would make someone want to read your posts and share them?
Although blogging is an ‘art’ and ‘science,’ there are simple, timeless, and proven steps that have worked for the most successful blogs out there.
Provide value to your reader. It is not about the post’s length; it is about the quality of the information you share. This is going to become ever so critical in 2021. As more blogs are being launched daily, your company will need fresh, new, and engaging content more frequently.
Provide actionable steps’ to help your audience move through your sales funnel. Again, 2021 will bring to the surface a challenge for many companies. As more blogs appear, your clients’ option pool on what to buy will only become bigger. As a result, you will have to compete with more companies to sell your product or service. The cleaner your CTA, the better the results.
Any reader, when they initiate a search, they are aware they are going to click through to multiple sites and links to end up where they need to go. You, as a company, need to give that ‘clickable’ option to your reader. In a sense, you need to take every reader on a walk through your online store, ending up in the digital aisle of the product they are looking to buy.
You can not set the loss in your store and hope they find their way. Guide them.
Best Practices
Blogging has been around for a while, and although we see it evolving and changing, certain aspects remain the same because they work!
Therefore there is no need to reinvent the wheel on some well know best practices:
Continue to use ‘click-worthy’ titles.
Always have an audience in mind (otherwise, your content is like a dart in the dark)
Provide valuable information. Always share something new, educational, inspirational, and anything that can create an emotional reaction to the reader.
Use SEO; without it, your efforts might go to waste.
Use clear CTAs to help your clients move through your digital space.
Invite people to subscribe to your blog for more news and collect leads.
Use images to break big chunks of content and create a more pleasant reading experience.
These are the basic best practices that you need to use regardless of what year we are in!
Let’s take a peek into the 2021 trends!
2021 Trends for Blogging
1. Indicate Estimated Time
One of the primary changes, whether it is because of the pandemic or simply because people now have more content options to consume, is the time it takes to go through your post. Always indicate estimated time to read on the top.
2. Do not Forget your CTAs.
You can use CTAs during the post, but you must include the primary CTA at the end of the article to help your reader take the next action.
Best examples of CTAs to use include:
Inviting the reader to check out your product or service
Asking the reader to subscribe so they can receive exclusive content and discount
Invite them to like your social media pages
Ask them to comment and make a suggestion
Link to a relevant post, so they continue to read
A CTA’s goal is to either convert, collect information, keep the reader longer on your page, or engage them further with your social media action!
Conclusion
The primary change we will observe in 2021 is the need for more content. Things to look out for are to add estimated read time, read more buttons, and never forget CTAs to prompt the reader to take the next step.
What do you think?
Will there be any other fundamental changes for bloggers in 2021?
Comment below and let us know! (see what we did there?)
