After a suggestion from a friend, we came up with this “How about the first blog post of the new year talk about ThinkZone's blogging journey?”.
These contents are not just a process we look back on, but certainly also bring value somewhere to business readers, because a good blog can really bring a large, stable source of traffic to the website, increase the company's reputation, and build the business's branding in the long term.
In this article, ThinkZone will share with readers some of the experiences we have accumulated over nearly 3 years of blogging, including the following contents:
➤ Why should every company have a blog?
➤ How to build content for a blog?
➤ Some notes about SEO for blog sites
➤ Strategy for blogging in each phase: Acquisition - Engagement - Retention
---
Subscribe Newsletter And agree to receive notifications on ThinkZone's website so you don't miss out on useful articles every week!
---
1. WHY SHOULD EVERY COMPANY HAVE A BLOG PAGE?
Blog is a channel for you to share useful knowledge and experience related to the field of your business with everyone, and I truly believe that every type of business has interesting knowledge for you to blog about.
For example, companies providing investment, consulting, and training services (like ThinkZone, Indochine Counsel), or new products that need market education (like Base.vn has resources.base.vn with many articles about digital transformation in businesses), or social commerce platforms also have blog channels that guide resellers on how to sell effectively,...
Although blogging is a long process, requiring perseverance, and a lot of research and study, the values it brings are truly worth the effort.
Stably increase traffic to the website
Blog is the top choice for attracting target customers to the website in a stable and long-term manner. A blog post of yours, if it is of good enough quality and is on the top page of Google searches for certain keywords, will bring a huge amount of traffic to the website. Many ThinkZone articles from 2019 to today are still bringing large daily traffic to the website due to reaching the top searches on Google.
In addition, in terms of search keywords, some business models are more difficult to attract traffic from Google than others. (For example, you will easily find Shoppe through a variety of keywords such as "shoes", "dresses", "refrigerator", ... but you can only find the ThinkZone website through a few keywords in a fairly narrow industry such as "venture capital", "accelerator", "startup"). At that time, blogging allows you to exploit more content surrounding the company's field of operation, helping the company's website to be searched through more keywords, and also easier to reach the top of searches.
* How to get an article to reach the top of search depends on the quality of the content and some notes about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I will talk more about this part later.
Save costs for businesses
The only cost that businesses have to spend is the cost of coding the blog page on the website and the cms page (content management system), and salary for blogging members. With blogs, the cost of running ads is not too important (Of course, you can absolutely share the blog on Facebook and run ads to get traffic, but my experience shows that this does not contribute too much to traffic in the long term, and it is also not recommended to run ads for the blog).
Bring your business image to customers in a reputable way, without "grabbing"
A good blog (about content and SEO) There will be many articles that will reach the top of searches, and will also be easily shared by readers, attracting significant word-of-mouth traffic. This is a significant advantage compared to other forms of media content (usually push from business to customer), then a good blog post is easy for users to "pull" themselves. (pull) each other, making them have a better impression, increasing the reputation and good image of the company.
In addition, blogging also helps writers learn and improve their knowledge
The process of sharing knowledge with others is also the process of learning more things. Especially for investment funds like ThinkZone, we always have to research and update new business trends/models, and that knowledge is somewhat shared weekly with ThinkZone readers.
2. HOW TO BUILD CONTENT FOR A BLOG?
Blog topics can be diverse (like topics on ThinkZone Blog), or focus on a certain area (eg sales, growth hacking, product development,...). Whatever content you choose, it must first be content that brings value to readers, and is related to the company's products/services.
Some of my experiences for blog content are as follows:
➤ It doesn't matter how long or short the blog is, the most important thing is the useful knowledge it brings to readers. In fact, contrary to many people's assumption that too long blogs easily frustrate readers and do not rank high on Google, blog posts that provide comprehensive knowledge, even though long, still have a very high chance of reaching the top of Google. Once again, content quality is the most important, that is, the information must be useful to readers, do not get carried away with introducing products/services too much.
➤ To make it easy for readers to remember, you should choose a common theme for your blog posts, for example, ThinkZone's theme is in-depth articles on many startup topics. The theme of another fund could be short stories about venture capital, or failure/success stories of startups.
➤ Articles should have specific examples or accompanying data to make it easier for readers to visualize.
➤ Accurate information, if there is a quote, choose a reputable source.
Some types of content and accompanying insights (so you can balance and allocate content types accordingly):
➤ General article format (for example: funding guidelines, what is a term sheet, what is abc xyz,...): It's easy to reach the top of Google searches because people often search for such general keywords. However, this content is often written by many other sites, making it difficult to create something special for the company.
➤ Format of personal experience articles, case study analysis (for example: Facebook's development journey, my 10-year startup experience,...): Often brings a lot of insight to readers, easy to make a difference, not generic, increases the blog's reputation, but is difficult to find with Google. These types of content are easier to spread through social media channels and word-of-mouth.
➤ Trending article format (for example: community debate about Play-to-earn games,...): Usually brings large traffic from all channels because this topic is receiving everyone's attention. However, trends often come suddenly and then fade away quickly, so you need to catch up with the trend to create content quickly, then in the long run the number of people reading about this trend will also decrease.
In addition, because writing a blog periodically can be frustrating at times, I encourage people to blog on topics they are interested in and want to learn about, because only then will they be inspired to persevere in blogging, and also put themselves in the reader's position, so writing will be more accurate to the reader's needs.
3. SOME NOTES ABOUT SEO FOR BLOG PAGES
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a technique of optimizing a number of elements on a website according to Google's ranking algorithm, thereby increasing the likelihood that the website will appear at the top of Google searches.
However, once again I want to emphasize that “Content quality comes first”, and you should spend most of your time refining the content, avoiding focusing too much on SEO optimization. I wrote the first ThinkZone Blog articles when I still didn't know what SEO was, and some of the articles at that time are still at the top of Google to this day. (“content is king”).
Below are some of my experiences about SEO for blogs. And because I'm a funder and don't specialize in SEO, there may be many things left out. I hope you'll join in with your comments to improve the content.
Choose keywords to make your blog easily searchable on Google
In the long run, the main traffic to blogs comes from Google, so you need to choose keywords so that your content can easily be searched for keywords that people often use when searching for that content. It sounds obvious, but when naming your blog, you will easily be confused between the following two titles:
➤ Business valuation using Discounted Cash Flows (DCF) method
➤ How to appropriately value a business?
Title number 2 sounds more appealing (I also encountered many more clickbait titles, for example "Business valuation methods every startup needs to know"). However, what phrase will readers search for to find an article with title number 2? Perhaps “business valuation” or “how to value a business”.
With title number 1, the article can also be found with the keywords "DCF", "Discounted cash flow", "DCF valuation",... although it doesn't sound as clickbait as (This probably depends on the person's perception). Title 1 will be more suitable for attracting traffic from Google.
In short, for each topic you plan to write about, instead of choosing "unique" keywords to create a sensational title, try to think about what keywords people often search for that topic, then integrate that keyword into the title and meta description of the article. Sensational headlines are only suitable for short-term channels such as newspapers, social networks, and email marketing, but not for long-term channels such as Google.
Some tools to help you identify keywords include Search Console, Google Keyword Planner.
However, don't put too much emphasis on inserting a lot of keywords. How to link the keywords skillfully without reducing the quality of the article.
Use URLs in a clear structure
This is a pretty simple step, but it will increase the chances of your Blog ranking well on Google Search.
For example, instead of using a link like https://thinkzone.vn/index.php?p=2278. Please insert more information to make the link clearer and look more professional: http://thinkzone.vn/blog/vi-sao-moi-cong-ty-nen-co-mot-trang-blog/
Some notes that HubSpot from HubSpot for titles and meta descriptions
Most Blogging software uses the title on your post as the title of the page, this is an important, prerequisite SEO factor for the article. As mentioned above, insert keywords that address the purpose of the post in a natural way, avoiding awkwardness.
The ideal number of characters for a title is under 65 characters, because titles that are too long will be truncated when appearing in search results.
Meta Description is the content that will appear right below the title on the Google search results page, providing readers with an outline of the article's content. Normally, a Meta Description should only be 150 to 160 characters long. Although Meta Descriptions do not affect the order on Google Search, they will help readers grasp the article content in advance, improving the click-through rate on the website.
* You can also listen to the SEO experience of Mr. Vu Nhat Anh, Co-founder & CTO of TopCV in The Growth Podcast, that you should follow the guidelines given by Google, which is to provide quality articles, and where to place the article on Google Search is Google's job. In fact, Google always favors quality articles. Google will change its algorithm every few months. And then articles that abuse unrelated keywords will leave the top of the search table, while quality articles (shown by traffic indicators, click-through rate, session duration,...) will surpass.
4. STRATEGY FOR BLOG IN EACH PHASE: ACQUISITION - ENGAGEMENT - RETENTION
At ThinkZone, we consider a blog as a product like any other product, and therefore also divide the stages and corresponding strategies into phases: Acquisition - Engagement - Retention.
a. Acquisition
This is the stage where your activities revolve around attracting new readers to the blog.
From Google and search engines
As mentioned above, the main traffic of the blog in the long term will come from Google, so SEO is a technique that you need to pay attention to to optimize traffic from this channel. More than 80% of traffic to ThinkZone website comes from Google.
However, this is not a channel that will bring you a large amount of traffic immediately, but it takes time for your website to prove its reputation with Google. In the short term, you should also take advantage of some of the following other acquisition channels.
Social network
Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter are effective channels that bring short-term traffic to blogs, through fanpages, or sharing on personal posts.
When sharing a post on your Facebook fanpage, you will probably be wondering between the following options:
➤ Keep the caption short, include the article link in the caption → The advantage is that readers can easily click on the thumbnail to read on the web, the disadvantage is that many people think that leaving the link in the caption easily reduces interaction.
➤ Leave a long caption with detailed content with illustrations, blog link in the comment section → The advantage is that readers can see the content right on Facebook, without worrying about the link in the caption reducing reach; The downside is that the experience of reading the content is reduced because Facebook captions do not have many formats for text, and when sharing a post, the link to the website is not visible.
After testing these options, the data that ThinkZone obtained are: There is no difference in reach, reaction, and share. This is an insight that you can also test with your own content.
In particular, community groups are extremely effective traffic collection channels, because they are places that gather existing potential readers with similar interests, and are highly likely to read the content you push into that group. However, remember that you must choose appropriate content to share, and share it with the appropriate frequency, avoiding spamming unreasonable content that negatively affects the brand.
Referral
Articles shared by readers with each other, or shared by reputable people, will create sympathy, increase credibility and attract more readers. Some tips for this section include:
➤ Collaborate to write articles/interview reputable people in the world to write blogs, and ask them to share the articles on their personal pages.
➤ Add a share button to your blog about channels with a call to action to encourage readers to share content.
Title and thumbnail
Title and thumbnail image play an important role in the decision to click to read the blog.
The title, in addition to incorporating appropriate keywords, also needs to clearly show the highlights and reasons for people to click to read the article. The thumbnail image needs to be directly related to the article topic, and eye-catching enough.
* Index: Looking at Google Analytics, you will be interested in the New Users index; With Search Console, it is Total Impression, Click-through rate, Average Position; As for social media channels, it will be reactions, shares, reach,...
2. Engagement
Speaking of Engagement, I want to mention how to increase readers' experience with the blog, thereby increasing the rate of them becoming more loyal readers.
Arrange the blog page layout accordingly
This step is quite important, properly arranging the content will help the blog attract readers, increase Retention, reduce Bounce Rate, and make the blog reading experience better. Avoid cramming in too much content or banners, causing readers to become confused and not focus on the main content.
For each article, you should choose images that are related to the article content, highly illustrative, and especially make the overall article look eye-catching. Arrange Related Posts, Newsletter subscription buttons,... according to reader behavior when accessing the Blog (usually at the bottom of the page, after readers have read the entire content, find it useful and want to read more/subscribe to the newsletter).
* You can refer 17 best examples to create a beautiful and inspiring Blog that Hubspot offers to design a Blog for your company.
Rest of World is a blog with good UI/UX and useful content.
You should also note that: there is no optimal UI/UX for every blog, but can always be further improved, depending on the company's creativity and level of user understanding. This process requires analyzing metrics and user behavior through tools like Google Analytics.
During the optimization process, the ThinkZone team every week makes assumptions about users and ideas to further improve the blog reader experience, and does some tests. (even the smallest) to continuously understand more about your readers, then rely on indicators to draw conclusions.
For example: You may notice that ThinkZone Blog has 2 newsletter subscription buttons (1 at the top of the page, and 1 at the bottom of the page). Using bit.ly to track the number of clicks on each button, we realized that most readers only click on the newsletter subscription button at the bottom of the page, meaning they only decide to subscribe after reading a certain blog post.
This is one of the many insights I have gained, through the process of continuously observing and testing different experiments.
Unify standards for content layout and text format
This is something you may ignore, but a consistent format of content throughout articles will provide a "smoother" experience for readers.
If you pay attention, you will see that ThinkZone's article content complies with the layout (except for posts from a long time before we realized this):
➤ Title
➤ Meta descriptions
➤ Introduction (shows the reason for writing the article, and outlines the content)
➤ Main content
➤ Summary
➤ Reference sources (if any)
And content format: for example, unified format for large headings, small headings, image captions, examples, explanations in brackets,... Same image format: for every 2-3 paragraphs of text there will be an illustration, similar image sizes,...
In addition, highlighting the major headings of the blog also makes it easier for readers to grasp the main idea, because they often skim the entire article first to quickly see the main ideas, find them interesting, and then carefully read each section of content.
Related articles
Placing article links related to the content mentioned in the blog will increase session duration and page/session. This also creates a good impression on readers that your blog provides comprehensive knowledge with the content they seek, increasing the company's reputation.
Add react and comment features
Blogs with these two features will also have a slight advantage when Google ranks them, because Google will consider them as websites that allow users to comment, so the content will be more objective and useful.
React and comment features also encourage readers to interact with the blog, increasing the likelihood that they will continue to follow the blog (to follow-up on discussions). In addition, the number of reactions for each blog post also helps readers easily identify good articles that are more appreciated by everyone.
Please look forward to these two features appearing on ThinkZone Blog!
* Index: With Engagement, you can look at some metrics on Google Analytics such as Session Duration, Page/ Session, User flow,...
3. Retention
With retention, your job is to build a loyal blog audience. I certainly don't need to remind myself how big the role of loyal customers is to a company.
Below are some strategies the ThinkZone team implements to improve Retention.
Newsletter
This is a popular strategy for keeping blog readers engaged, and companies can get more out of the emails readers leave behind. For blogs alone, Newsletter does not play the role of increasing new users, but plays the role of constantly reminding readers about the blog's brand, along with the company's brand, bringing the company to the top of their minds.
With the Weekly Newsletter, ThinkZone's Return User rate has increased from 16% to 20%, and the number of subscribers is still increasing every week.
Mailchimp is a popular tool for creating, sending and testing email marketing, but it often ends up in the recipient's Promotions mailbox. Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM) is an add-on of G-Suit, solving the problem of sending emails to the Promotions mailbox and the cost is quite cheap.
Push notifications
With push notification subscribers, you can easily send notifications to readers' computers as soon as there is a new article. But because the click rate of push notifications is generally quite low, push notifications act more like reminding readers about new articles than encouraging them to click.
Write articles regularly
This is a task that seems easy but is difficult, especially for a blog with deep expertise that requires a lot of research like ThinkZone Blog. Maintaining the current pace of writing 1 article/week for a long time requires perseverance and a passion for writing.
And that perseverance, coupled with good content, will certainly be rewarded with a loyal readership, traffic to the website, and moreover, readers' trust in the business.
* Index: With Retention, you can look at some metrics on Google Analytics such as % Return User, on email sending tools such as number of subscribers, open rate, click-through rate,...
SUMMARY
Above is the summary of ThinkZone's 3 years of blogging experience, helping you build and develop a blog for your own company.
From the early days of blogging with no articles, no readers, no traffic and no one knew, to the milestone of thousands of traffic per day is not a story that happens in a day or two. The process of blogging takes time, perseverance, and a little passion, and the results are truly worth it.
Reference
https://bit.ly/thegrowthpodcast_TZ
https://bettermarketing.pub/organize-your-business-blog-for-conversions-and-great-ux
https://blog.tomorrowmarketers.org/lam-the-nao-de-thiet-lap-mot-trang-blog/
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/how-to-create-an-amazing-company-blog/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-write-introduction-quick-tip-ht