Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
As a ghostwriter, I have completed a wide range of jobs for many clients over the years. Some want strictly clinical writing while others want a more personable piece. I often wondered why businesses don’t go for a more conversational blog. Statistically, they perform better than strict informational posts. Here is why I think business blogging should have more of a personality.
Blogging from a Business Perspective
One of the reasons why businesses put effort into any kind of a blog is to engage an audience. Otherwise, why write the material? If you don’t care who reads it, the posts become almost pointless. However, it can do more than just bring attention to a service or product.
More People Trust Brands that Blog
Business blogging inspires more people to trust a brand. It helps strengthen authenticity in the market and shows people the company knows their stuff. In fact, a 2013 study demonstrated just how important authenticity is to consumers.
Gone are the days of the faceless corporation cornering market shares. The Internet provides a platform to allow anyone to find a variety of information on any company or product. Blogging is one of those ways that can help build a trusting reputation.
But blogging simply may not be enough. It’s the interpersonal connection which many people want to feel when reading a piece. Being more conversational allows people to relate more to a brand than simply reading about it. And it’s these connections that can help build trust.
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Personality Increases Page Duration
I’ve found that pieces that have a more personal quality to them also experience the higher rate of on-page duration in Google Analytics. What does this mean? It means people are spending more time reading material that seems more friendly than clinical.
Sure, there is a time an place for the droll and mundane. A manual for putting together a desk is the first thing that pops into mind. But generally speaking, people connect more to something that can engage them on a personal level.
Now, I can’t say that every blog post you create with personality will vastly increase the time people spend reading it. But I can attest to how it’s made a difference for both of the blogs I operate. This is aside from the fact that more of my clients want this same aspect to their websites.
Increasing the Sense of Unique Content
Personality does more than just make your content more easy to read and absorb. It can also give you that sense of unique individuality on the Internet. With the sheer number of sites that are available online, it pays to be unique.
In essence, your blog needs to have just as much of a separate personality as you do. When you’re out and about with friends, are you being yourself? Or do you emulate someone’s behavior? A website that can “be itself” is just as vital as a real-life human personality.
Things like personal experiences are some of the best ways to offer that sense of individuality. Although many people may experience the same thing, each person may have their own point of view. It’s this viewpoint that can help separate your business blogging from the vast number of competitors on the Internet.
Ads May Be Less Important than You Realize
Most companies on the Internet will dump an incredible amount of money in advertising. While some of these ads may work exceptionally well, statistics show that 70% of consumers would rather get to know a company through online articles than advertisements.
It’s also interesting to note that 78% of consumers believe businesses with custom content such as blogging are more likely to build on good relationships. Essentially, they view it as the foundation of superior customer service. In a sense, they may be right.
One of the biggest contributors to customer service of any kind is trust. If someone doesn’t have faith in your brand, they’re less likely to believe you will be of any help to them. Adding personality to your business blogging may just help strengthen that faith.
Blogging Helps Search Engine Optimization
Companies who maintain regular blogs have more exposure in search engines. They’re the most likely to score well in results and have more pages and links indexed. I know that this fact really doesn’t play into add personality to your blog. However, it is a good point to single out.
When you consider how personality adds to trust in a brand, scoring well in SEO practices can be greatly beneficial. It’s almost a symbiotic-like relationship. Both can contribute to improving how the other performs online.
How to Add Personality to Business Blogging
Adding personality really isn’t as difficult as some might think. As a ghostwriter, it can be hard sometimes to switch back and forth with clients. However, maintaining a more personable blog over a period of time should be relatively easy for you or your staff.
Multiple Authors
Consumers are more likely to trust a blog and a brand when there are more than one author. Depending on the size of your business, this can be fairly easy to accomplish. This is especially true if you use tools like WordPress to operate the blog.
Different authors have different styles of writing. While some may seem similar, there are subtle nuances to each style that make it unique. This gives business blogging more of a “life”, if you will. It seems more realistic and engaging to the average reader.
Personal Experiences
I covered personal experiences a bit earlier, but I wanted to reiterate how it can influence the personal appeal of your site.
Having personal experiences intermixed with the content makes it feel more believable and relates more to a conversational tone. It’s this sense of conversation that you want in your blog. People relate more to content that is written as if it were a buddy explaining a topic to them.
In other words, be your visitor’s friend.
Make it Easy to Read
Content on your blog needs to be easy to read by the average Internet user. Stay away from advanced lingo or excessively long paragraphs. The easier it is for someone to read a post, the more likely they’ll continue reading it or even share it on social media.
Personally, I use tools like Yoast SEO. It has several features that can help you create easy to read content. For example, it will analyze your writing in real-time to show you a Flesch Reading Ease score. This is a test that was designed to show how easy a piece of content is to read.
Anyway, materials that are easier to read seem more personable to visitors. Probably because you’re staying away from long words that can confuse or distract your readers from getting the gist of the content. You don’t need to show off your linguistic skills to the average Joe.
Read it Out Loud
If you’re ever in doubt, read the content out loud as if you were giving a speech in YouTube. Is it something you would say? When you read things out loud, you get a deeper sense of how it would sound in the heads of other people.
This is actually a good practice to get into whether you’re business blogging or not. As a ghostwriter, I often read content for clients as if I was making a YouTube video for them. If the “script” doesn’t sound right, it’s time for a revision.
Business Blogging Only Serves to Benefit
You would think that with all of the benefits that come from business blogging in general, more companies would put in the effort. Unfortunately, not all of them do. Even the smallest of companies can reap the rewards of developing content online.
From building trust to increasing sales and leads, personal value to a blog can easily boost income for a company. The hardest part is figuring out the best times to post your content online. But that, as they say, is another story.
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