A step-by-step guide to the blogging strategy
for your small business

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Introduction

77% online users read blogs and blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information. No wonder blogging is the most powerful and inexpensive strategy and tactic for content marketing.

However, as a small business owner, if you simply start writing something without a clear strategy and consistent execution, you will soon burn out since you won’t be driving organic traffic to your website.

In this blog, we will cover:

  1. Why blogging is important?
  2. How to develop a blogging strategy for your website.
  3. Selecting the topics you want to own and build authority around them.
  4. Key elements of a great blog.
  5. How to make your blogs SEO friendly?
  6. Keeping up with the frequency for your blogs.
  7. How to measure your success?

Why is Blogging important?

Over 2 billion people shopped online  in the year 2020.

Having a strong blogging strategy to drive traffic to the online store is essential to increase sales for the small businesses.

A blogging strategy is essential for a small business for the following reasons:

  1. It helps you drive organic traffic to your website.
  2. It helps generate quality leads.
  3. It helps in increasing the awareness of your company’s brand.
  4. It helps in SEO and ranking with the search engines.
  5. It is fairly inexpensive.

Blogging is the cornerstone for the digital marketing strategy for small businesses and startups. You can learn more by downloading our step-by-step guide for Digital Marketing for Small Businesses with simple and actionable tools, strategies, and tactics to increase organic traffic for your small business.

How to develop a Blogging Strategy for your website?

Gone are the days when you could just whip up a few dozens of articles, publish them on the website and get traction on the website. Even a well written, SEO friendly and information rich blog may fall behind on the search engine due to the change in the Google algorithm.

Search engines such as Google are not just looking at the keywords in your content. In fact, you might even get penalized by the search engines for stuffing the keywords. The ultimate goal for you is to solve a problem and provide concrete value to your customer or readers via your blogs.

Hence, instead of just focusing on the keywords, you need to identify what topics you want to own or be known for. When a consumer searches for these topics, and you have high quality content on these topics, you start building “authority” around these topics.

So, as a first step, find a handful of topics that really matter to your small business and your customers. Each topic could have several sub-topics. Together, the topic page/blog and sub-topic blogs will help you create a topic cluster that gives you the breadth and depth of the content to build authority around the topic.

Here is the strategy for creating a topic cluster:

  • For each of your topic of interest, create a pillar page blog.
  • For each of your sub-topic, create a more in-depth sub-topic level blog.
  • Link the pillar page blog and sub-topic blogs to each other.

All of these would help you create a topic cluster to give the breadth and depth of content around that topic.

Topic Bluster

Pillar Page

A. What is a pillar page?

A pillar page is exactly what it says - it’s a pillar that supports various different pieces of content around the topic you want to be known for. Pillar pages are often long. The pillar page is the main page that describes the topic and provides a single place that helps users to solve their problem and it connects various different pieces of sub-topic content that allows the reader to go in depth in each one of the subtopic.

Like a few pillars support an entire house, a few pillar pages support an entire blogging strategy around the topics that you care about. The pillar page contains every single piece of information that one can find related to a certain topic. If you need more in-depth information on the subtopics, the pillar page connects you to in-depth sub-topic pages.

B. How to create a pillar page?

First, you will have to decide what is the topic that you want to be known for. Once that is decided, you can start working on creating an outline and shortlisting the top 5-7 sub-topics that are essential to explain the topic in more depth. Every single high level topic will become your pillar page which will connect to your sub-topic pages.

For example, celebrity chef, Alton Brown has a food blog. Making soups during winter is one of the topics that he would like to own. His pillar page for this topic is How to Make Comforting Soups All Winter Long.

In this pillar page, Alton Brown writes about, how soup can be very comforting in the winter and describes different types of soup you can make and then links the pillar page to different subtopic blogs such as Chicken Soup a la Pressure, Pho Bo (Beef Pho), Butternut Squash Soup, Cheese Soup, and Lentil Soup.

For example, celebrity chef, Alton Brown has a food blog. Making soups during winter is one of the topics that he would like to own. His pillar page for this topic is How to Make Comforting Soups All Winter Long.

In this pillar page, Alton Brown writes about, how soup can be very comforting in the winter and describes different types of soup you can make and then links the pillar page to different subtopic blogs such as Chicken Soup a la Pressure, Pho Bo (Beef Pho), Butternut Squash Soup, Cheese Soup, and Lentil Soup.


As another example, we at StartupWind want to be known for helping small business and startup entrepreneurs. Few examples of topics that make sense for us are Digital Marketing for Small Businesses and Startups, Fundraising for Startups, Market research for Small Businesses, and Business Planning for Small Businesses. Each one of these are great candidates for our pillar pages.

Before writing the pillar page (or sub-topic) blog, always ask yourself a few questions:

  • What exactly is the purpose of this blog?
  • What will the readers get out of reading it?
  • Will they even bother to read the blog?
  • Will your blog solve a problem?
  • Will the customers come back to your website based on this blog?

This will flush out the story that you want to tell to your readers and make it crisp.

C. How to decide on what topic to use for a pillar page?

It is all about what your small business wants to be known for and the information that you want to share with your readers to help them solve a unique problem.

Let’s take, Alton Brown’s blog as an example again that focuses on a variety of comfort food categories such as soups, brownies, chicken wings, Thanksgiving Turkey and many more.

All of these are key topics that, Mr. Brown wants to own and each one of them has a pillar page that includes sub-topic blogs. For example, the pillar page for Thanksgiving Turkey has different recipes for cooking turkey such as, Deep Fried Turkey, Honey Brined Smoked Turkey and many more.

For example, Alton Brown’s blog focuses on a variety of comfort food categories such as soups, brownies, chicken wings, Thanksgiving Turkey and many more.

All of these are key topics that, Mr. Brown wants to own and each one of them has a pillar page that includes sub-topic blogs. For example, the pillar page for Thanksgiving Turkey has different recipes for cooking turkey such as, Deep Fried Turkey, Honey Brined Smoked Turkey and many more.


So start writing down topics that you want to be known for and you want to own.

1. Structure of your pillar page:

  • Introduction that describes “why care” about the topic and also summarizes what your blog will offer to the reader.
  • Elaborate information about what unique approach or solution you are offering.
  • Sections for each sub-topic with sufficient details for the readers to compel to check the sub-topic blog pages.
  • Conclusion to drive your point home in terms of how you are solving the user’s problem in a systematic manner.

2. Subtopic blog pages

Once you decide on the pillar page topics, you will be able to identify certain topics that require more information to help the customer gain in depth knowledge about the concepts explained in the plillar page. These types of topics are the ones that become your subtopics.

In order to make it useful and actionable for the reader, every major topic needs to be broken down into subtopics. This allows the users to get a quick overview about what information she has at her disposal by reading the pillar page and then diving deeper into the sub-topic blogs.

In case of Alton Brown’s pillar page blog on How to Make Comforting Soups All Winter Long, the content is broken down in to sub-topic blogs such as Chicken Soup a la Pressure, Pho Bo (Beef Pho), Butternut Squash Soup, Cheese Soup, and Lentil Soup.

For Alton Brown’s pillar page blog on How to Make Comforting Soups All Winter Long, the content is broken down in to sub-topic blogs such as Chicken Soup a la Pressure, Pho Bo (Beef Pho), Butternut Squash Soup, Cheese Soup, and Lentil Soup.

As another example, StartupWind’s pillar page for Digital Marketing for Small Businesses the content is broken down into subtopics such as blogging, email marketing, social media marketing, SEO and more.

Content clusters

A good content cluster would have a pillar page that is supported by multiple subtopic pages that provide you with the breadth and depth of the information you are delivering on the topic you want to be known for.

It also has quality content that solves the readers problem and provides sufficient breadth and depth of useful content that helps your small business build authority around that topic.

In the diagram on the right is an example of how a content cluster would look like with all it’s elements.

Content Clusters

Making your blog SEO friendly

Your pillar page is ready. Your subtopics are ready. You have built a great content cluster around the topic you want to own.

In order for this great content to be discovered by the search engines, you have to make the content SEO friendly:

a. Title/Heading

The title/heading of your blog should have the topic and the keywords you are targeting for the blog. The title of your blog should use the H1 tag.

b. Sub-topics/headings

The subtopic headings in your blogs should use H2 tags so that the important topics are recognized by the search engines.

Understand that the H1 and H2 tags are informing the search engines and website visitors about important topics and sub-topics of your blog. These tags should be used only in heading and subheadings to make the job of the search engines and readers easier.

c. Bullet points and snippets

A blog must look pleasing to the eyes of the reader. There should be less clutter and more white space.

Instead of writing a long paragraph that highlights 5 key elements of a sub-topic, making them as 5 bullet points makes them more recognizable to the search engines and will make them more readable for your readers.

d. Meta description

Meta description should ideally consist of a brief summary of your page.

You must make sure your long-tail keyword (topic) and the primary keyword you are targeting are included in the meta description.

e. Relevant and appropriate use of keywords

Your blog should contain relevant primary keywords and long tail keywords (which is your topic). These primary keywords should be aligned with the topic of your article. For each blog, you should target only one or two primary keywords for better discoverability and focus.

f. Keyword density

Don’t stuff the article/blog with keywords or overuse them. As per the SEO experts, the ideal usage of a keyword in an article must be only 1-2 keywords in every 100 words of your article. Search engines would penalize you for stuffing the keywords.

g. Call to action (CTA)

As a best practice, near the banner image of your blog (top section of your blog) is a great place to offer a CTA to download an eBook or a guide.

Once you introduce the topic and get the user hooked, your next CTA could be more subtle (after the first 1 or 2 paragraphs) which could just be a hyperlink to the blog text.

Lastly, towards the end of the blog, you should have a prominent CTA with a proper banner image.

h. Videos, Banners, Images

Instead of long monotonous text, adding videos, banners and images in the blog will keep your readers engaged and lower your bounce rate substantially.

For certain topics, Google tends to show videos near the top of the page. In these cases, adding videos to your blog gives an opportunity for you to improve the ranking of your blogs.

Additionally, having images and videos will provide you with an opportunity to add Alt text which is great for SEO.

For example, if the reader is specifically looking for “how to assemble a floor lamp” on a search engine, then the search engine is more likely to show the videos and photo based instructive blogs ahead of purely text based articles.

i. Alt text:

Alt text is a small description like a caption written for images in your blog. This text becomes very important to make sense of the image when the user cannot see the image for some reason.

A well descriptive short alt text is important for the website’s accessibility and SEO. The alt text should capture the essence of the topic of the blog and also should have the primary keywords you are targeting.

Repurpose your existing content

Creating a pillar page along with the content cluster is a lengthy and definitive process. It takes time, research, reworks and a lot of edits. But, once you have a solid pillar page, you actually have great content that you can repurpose and promote via different channels.

A single pillar page blog can easily lead to:

  • 5 to 7 sub-topic blogs.
  • An eBook that combines the pillar page and sub-topic pages that the reader can download.
  • Short videos that explains the main topic as well as the sub-topics.
  • Infographics describing the pillar page and sub-topic pages that can be sent via email campaigns or embedded into your blogs.
  • Banners for these pages to publish via social media channels.
  • A slide deck or two that captures the entire topic.
  • A webinar based on the slide deck.
  • A course by leveraging the recorded webinar.

For example, Alton Brown’s topic blog on Thanksgiving Turkey leads to several subtopic blogs as well as a Thanksgiving Video.

For example, Alton Brown’s topic blog on Thanksgiving Turkey leads to several subtopic blogs as well as a Thanksgiving Video.


As another example, StatupWind’s topic blog on Digital Marketing for Small Businesses leads to several subtopic blogs and an eBook.

Ensuring frequency of your blogs

By consistently writing on specific topics on a weekly basis, your site will start gaining authority around that topic.

Every week, on the selected days, if you start publishing fresh blogs focused on the topics that your small business or startup cares about, you will start seeing growth in your traffic. It will also start improving your ranking with Google search engine.

For example, you may write and publish the pillar page blog in the first week and then publish a sub-topic blog for each of the next several weeks to build out your topic cluster and authority around the topic of interest.

In the end, more consumers will find and read your blogs and start engaging with your business and will ultimately purchase your products.

How to measure the success of your blogging strategy?

“Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”

-John Wanamaker, US Retail Magnate

You can improve only if you can measure. Before you start publishing content, identify the top metrics and the baseline results you are currently getting. Key metrics to consider are:

  1. Number of daily visitors
  2. Amount of time spent on your website per session
  3. Bounce rate
  4. Average CTR (Click Through Rate)
  5. Conversion Rate

Once your content is published, you should start tracking the changes in 2 weeks. You will then know whether there is an increase in traction on the website.

You can use tools like Google Search Console and Ubersuggest to get these numbers.

Conclusion

Blogging is one of the most inexpensive and effective ways to drive organic traffic to your small business website.

To summarize, you can implement a successful blogging strategy by:

  1. Identifying the topics of interest.
  2. Creating topic clusters with pillar pages and sub-topics.
  3. Publishing high quality blogs focused on solving the customer problem yet aligned with the topic cluster.
  4. Making the blogs SEO friendly.
  5. Writing consistently on a weekly basis.
  6. Measuring the key metrics on a regular basis.

In the end, this will help you build authority around the topics of interest, more consumers will find and read your blogs and start engaging with your business and will ultimately purchase your products.

To learn more about how blogging fits into your overall Digital Marketing strategy, download our step-by-step guide for Digital Marketing for Small Businesses and start driving organic traffic for your small business.

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