19 blogging best practices to attract new clients
Whether you have a new or established business, finding clients can be challenging. We love blogging because it’s a brilliant way to attract people who want to work with you. A great blog will let you sit back and watch as you attract leads instead of chasing them.
There is an art to blogging this way, though. We’ve put together 19 blogging best practices to follow if you want to attract new clients.
Jump to blogging best practices in this guide:
- 1. Define your audience.
- 2. Use keywords.
- 3. Blog every week.
- 4. Create a content calendar.
- 5. Define the topic of every blog post.
- 6. Include robust, engaging information.
- 7. Include relevant, recent statistics.
- 8. Include internal links.
- 9. Make sentences short and easy to read.
- 10. Keep language clear and basic.
- 11. Structure your blog posts.
- 12. Use header tags effectively.
- 13. Include calls to action (CTAs).
- 14. Proofread your blog posts.
- 15. Ensure links open in a new window.
- 16. Optimise images.
- 17. Categorise your blog posts.
- 18. Optimise metadata.
- 19. Promote your blog.
1. Define your audience
Identifying who you want to support via your blog is the first step to attracting clients.
Imagine a blog post is the bait on a fishing line you cast into ‘Lake Google.’ To attract the right people, you need the right bait.
You’ll struggle to attract dream clients with content they’re not looking for. (Just like you’d have a hard time catching a fish with a screwdriver instead of a worm… fish just aren’t searching for screwdrivers.)
Your blog audience should be the same as your business’ target audience. For example, if your ideal clients are busy mums who need help finding their fashion style, you should write blogs those people want to read.
2. Use keywords
When we have a question that needs answering, most of us turn to Google. (There are 5.9 million Google searches every minute.)
Google tries to find us relevant solutions by matching the words and phrases we’ve searched with similar words and phrases on web pages and blog posts from around the internet.
These words and phrases are keywords. Using the right keywords in your blog posts is a vital blogging best practice that can get your business in front of the right people.
For instance, a dog trainer could include ‘friendly dog trainer’ in their blog posts. Most people Googling ‘friendly dog trainer’ (10 people every month – we checked) are probably looking for just that. So, using the keyword increases the trainer’s chances of attracting new clients.
How do you find out what keywords your ideal clients are searching? Try free tools like Ubersuggest or Google Ads Keyword Planner. We use these and other tools to conduct keyword research for our Finer Blog Copy package clients. (Although we use the paid version of Ubersuggest to get as much data as poss.)
Blogging best practice hot tip:
Choose a ‘primary keyword’ and use this throughout your blog post at a density of 1–2% (use a percentage calculator to check this).
3. Blog every week
You’ll need to post at least once a week to attract new clients to your blog and business. Posting less often than that (or posting inconsistently) is a major blogging mistake to avoid. This is because it’s difficult for your blog posts to show up consistently against competitors who are putting out three times the amount of content (or more).
Posting weekly also lets Google know that your website is active. This matters because Google may crawl an inactive site less often. This could impact your rankings in Google results pages.
Businesses that ignore this blogging best practice often start posting regularly and then abandon their blog a few months in. Commit to blogging weekly and, in time, more and more people will discover your posts in search results.
4. Create a content calendar
If you struggle to post regularly, make a content calendar that lists weekly blog topics. A content calendar will help you keep your blogging schedule on track and stop you from running out of ideas.
Blogging best practice hot tip:
List all those keywords you found using the tools we suggested earlier. Write a blog post each week using one keyword as the main topic. Ta-da! You’ve got an instant content calendar.
5. Define the topic of every blog post
You don’t want to confuse readers with vague, rambling content. This content turns readers off in seconds. To avoid this, define the topic of every blog post by:
- Writing content that reflects the statement you’ve made or question you’ve posed in your title.
- Staying on-topic and not drifting off on tangents.
- Always returning to the main point you’re making.
6. Include robust, engaging information
Creating quality content is an essential blogging best practice if you want to attract new clients to your blog. Focus on writing robust, insightful, engaging information rather than trying to hit a specific word count.
Suppose you’re reading two blog posts on the same topic from different businesses.
One is over 2,000 words and hardly says anything of value. The other is just 500 words but packed with handy info.
Which business are you more likely to work with?
That’s not to say you shouldn’t write long-form content. But if you do, every word should count.
Ensure you’re writing quality posts by:
- Including new information or genuinely valuable insights.
- Incorporating relevant facts and research.
- Cutting out any fluffy, repetitive sections.
7. Include relevant, recent statistics
Back up your argument and strengthen your content with relevant statistics from trustworthy sources. Linking to authoritative sites can show readers that your blog is a reliable source of sound information.
This will also tell Google that you’re using high-quality sources, which can help with your search rankings.
Avoid using sources that are more than five years old. Ancient research can make stats (and your blog posts) feel outdated.
On the contrary, lacing new research through your blog posts will keep them funky fresh. Ensure you’re including the latest findings to make your posts as up-to-date and useful as possible.
8. Include internal links
Internal links are links to your other blog posts and web pages. Follow blogging best practices by including at least three internal links in each blog post.
Internal links will keep people exploring your site and learning how your business could help them. Otherwise, they might close the tab and lose you (and we don’t want that!).
9. Make sentences short and easy to read
People love easy-to-read content, and so do search engines. Improving readability (the quality of content that’s easy to read) is a basic blogging best practice.
You can improve the readability of your content by:
- Keeping your sentences short (20 words maximum wherever possible).
- Formatting lists of three or more as bullet points.
Pasting your blog post into the Hemingway Editor. This free tool will score your content’s readability and suggest changes you can make to improve it.
10. Keep language clear and basic
As an industry expert, you’re probably used to writing in business jargon. But this isn’t blogging best practice. A potential client may not understand the same sector-specific words and phrases you do and click away from your blog as a result.
When blogging to attract new clients, keep language basic and free of technical terms. Always clarify jargon and include explanations to help the reader understand.
11. Structure your blog posts
To improve your chances of attracting new clients, you want to make your blog posts as reader-friendly as possible. A solid wall of text can put readers off and make it hard for them to find the information they’re after. If people find your blog posts hard to navigate, they’re unlikely to become clients.
Structuring your blog post aligns with blogging best practices. Give your blog posts a clear structure by:
- Keeping paragraphs up to four lines long where possible.
- Using clear headings.
- Breaking up your content into distinct sections of 300 words maximum.
12. Use header tags effectively
Header tags, like H1, H2, H3, and H4, are crucial for your blog posts. They improve your content’s readability. They also boost your chances of appearing in search results, as Google uses header tags to understand the content in your blog post.
The H1 tag should be the blog post’s main title. You should use successive header tags to organise your content in a clear hierarchy.
Blogging best practice hot tip:
Include your primary keyword in your H1 and some secondary keywords in other headings.
13. Include calls to action
Using effective calls to action (CTA) is a blogging best practice to increase reader engagement. A CTA is a short phrase that encourages readers to act in a way you want. You might ask people to:
- Sign up for your enewsletter.
- Download a free resource.
- Book a discovery call.
- Learn more about your services.
There are countless CTAs you can use to bring readers closer to working with you. We recommend including CTAs throughout and at the end of each blog post.
Follow blogging best practice by using one CTA per blog post. This will lower the risk of creating decision fatigue for your readers. Make your requests clear and tempting by appealing to your target audiences’ biggest problems and needs.
14. Proofread your blog posts
It’s blogging best practice to proofread your posts before sharing them with the world. Blog posts with grammatical and spelling errors can harm your professional credibility. Mistakes can also make your content harder to read and understand.
If you’re not the best at spotting these errors, consider:
- Using a free tool like Grammarly.
- Delegating your blog to the experts.
- Hiring the services of a professional copy editor. Our Creative Director Charlotte is a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP): she helps our clients perfect their content.
15. Ensure links open in a new window
Here’s a bonus blogging best practice: make sure the links you include in your blog posts open in a new window.
Whenever a link takes a reader to a new page, they move away from your blog post (and your website). And they may never come back. Ensuring links open in a new window will keep your page open and avoid potential clients losing you.
16. Optimise images
Include images and / or infographics in your blog posts to add a splash of colour and visual excitement. Aside from looking good, images help break up the text in your blog post, improving readability.
Images can also impact your blog SEO. Optimising images for search engines is part of blogging best practices. So make sure:
- They’re an appropriate size. You don’t want huge images taking up space on the page.
- They’re compressed for faster loading times. (Use JPEGs rather than PNGs.)
- You include descriptive alt text. Alt text appears in place of an image if it fails to load and describes images to visually impaired readers. Alt text also enables Google to better crawl and rank your website.
17. Categorise your blog posts
If you’re blogging once a week, you’re creating 52 posts a year. That’s too many to not organise clearly.
Maintain blogging best practices by organising your blog posts into categories on your website. This will make it easier for visitors to find the information they’re interested in.
18. Optimise metadata
Metadata is information you include in the back-end of your blog post to help Google understand the post’s content and context.
Metadata can improve your business’ online visibility and search engine rankings.
Optimising your blog posts’ metadata by writing engaging meta titles and meta descriptions is a key aspect of blogging best practices. This information tells search engines and users about the content of your blog post. As a result, it helps people decide whether to click on your posts or not.
Here are some tips for optimising your meta titles and descriptions:
- Don’t make them too long, or the search engine will cut off important information. Preview your meta titles and meta descriptions using Higher Visibility’s free Google SERP Snippet Optimisation Tool.
- Include each blog post’s primary keyword in its meta title and description.
- Make sure your blog post’s H1 and opening content deliver what you’re promising in the meta title and description.
19. Promote your blog
You’ve spent hours researching, writing, proofreading, and optimising your blog post. You finally hit publish and the post goes live on your website for the world to see. However, it might take a while for Google to crawl your site and present your blog post to users.
Be sure to promote your post to get as many eyes on your new content as soon as possible. Share links to your blog post through your various marketing channels – for example, your Facebook or enewsletter. You could also make your blog post topic the focus of your upcoming podcast episode or Instagram reel.
Say hello to new clients with these blogging best practices
Incorporating these blogging best practices into your routine can significantly enhance your online presence. By staying consistent and optimising content, you’ll be on the way to attracting your new, favourite clients.
If this all sounds a bit daunting, why not hand your blog over to the pros? We help women entrepreneurs go from invisible to irresistible with Google-ranking blog posts that reel in clients.
About Finer Things Editorial
Finer Things Editorial writes for businesses that help others achieve abundance, whether in the form of profit, self-love, or physical health. Our content helps these businesses attract their dream clients, so they don’t have to chase them. Having taken businesses from 0 to 1,000+ primed-to-buy website visitors per day, we take businesses from unknown to really known.
