Business blogging has been a hot topic for years.

It’s changed a lot over the years, too. So much so, that many people are still stuck in the old ways of business blogging.

They simply aren’t up to speed on the new info.

Some are also reading and researching on the best practices of business blogging, but still aren’t uncovering the most important and relevant information.

Don’t worry — here are the questions you didn’t think to ask (and the answers)!

Q: How do I get my readers to provide blog content?

A: Getting your readers to provide you with great content is one of the best ways to come up with blog content.

You can do this by…

Holding contests and featuring the best submissions.
Requesting submissions and featuring each one, winner or not.
Gathering reviews or relevant conversations from your social account pages and review websites.

Not only does this save you a ton of time in creating helpful and useful content, but it’s also social proof for your business.

Q: How do I become an authority, so people will link to my blog posts?

A: “The world does NOT need more information. Instead, what the world needs (and values) is a trusted authority who will organize and aggregate all of the GOOD information that’s actually worth reading into one place.

This concept is nothing new. In fact, the largest, most successful authority sites on the web rarely feature content written by the person who has their name on it.” – Digital Marketer

You don’t have to write all of your blog content and come up with 100% original content all the time to be an authority site.

In fact, the reverse is true.

You can use different kinds of posts to collect information from around the web, which is relevant to your niche, and publish it with links back to the original articles.

Check out Digital Marketer’s Ultimate List of Blog Post Ideas for how to do this the right way!

Q: Should I do market research before I create blog content?

A: The short answer is YES.

The long answer: When starting your blog, you’ll need to do some keyword research to see which long tail keywords you should be using.

Check out this article from Single Grain on how to properly do market research when creating a blog content plan.

Q: How does Google index my blog?

A: “Indexing is the processing of the information gathered by the Googlebot from its crawling activities. Once documents are processed, they are added to Google’s searchable index if they are determined to be quality content. During indexing, the Googlebot processes the words on a page and where those words are located. Information such as title tags and ALT attributes are also analyzed during indexing.” – Kiss Metrics

Here is a list of steps to take to make sure Google indexes your blog properly.

Create a Sitemap with the WordPress plugin, or XML Sitemaps.
Submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.
Post your link around the web on your profiles or other relevant content.
Create content in places other than your website, and make sure it links back to your blog.

Q: How can I optimize my blog for making sales?

A: We can’t cover this whole question this time around…

…instead, here is a list of things you’ll need to do to make sure your business blogging works as a big part of your selling machine:

Place your most popular blog posts on your homepage, like we have on our Perfect Homepage Template, which is free to download!
Add a call to action at the end of your blog post to get readers to opt in for your lead magnet.
Write content that gives your target audience what they want.
Link your blogs first to low dollar or free offers that lead to the bigger sale (using a sales funnel).
Keep the Customer Value Optimization model in mind every step of the way.

Want to make sure your business blogging strategy is on point?

Let us give you a free checklist, with a free 30-minute phone call with one of our growth experts!

That’s right. It’s free and we call it The Double Your Sales Review.

Grab a spot on our calendar, here (you pick the time for your free phone call!)