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Blog Guidelines
- November 11, 2013
- Posted by: Admin
- Category: Blogs, Digital Marketing
This is the final part of our three-part blogging series. Please check out the previous two articles to better understand how to get your company blog up and running smoothly!
Some of the most important aspects of blogging are ones that you probably don’t think about often: post length and update frequency. These factors are incredibly important and have a significant impact on how your readership views you. Above all, targeting general guidelines for article length and posting frequency helps make you a consistent blogger. Lots of people and companies blog, but the ones that do so consistently are the ones that look the most professional and skilled. If you can put out a post every week, you appear more knowledgeable than someone else in your field who only posts once a month.
So about how long should a regular blog post be? Blogging isn’t a science. Just about anything can get popular on the Internet with the right combination of hard work and luck. Some of the most popular blogs on the Internet have an average post length of under 200 words while others average over 1,000, even though both can deal with the same subject matter! The truth is that there is no hard and fast rule for blog length. The most important thing is that you get your message out. In general, if you adequately explain what you set out to in any one article, the length is correct.
That said, a good sweet spot is around 350-500 words; enough to have substance while still being short enough to read quickly so that you don’t lose a reader’s attention. While long posts are okay, once you have 1,000+ words you should think about splitting an article up into multiple pieces that you can post as a series.
Not every post on your blog has to be the same length, but following a general guideline can help you produce articles more quickly as you get used to a certain format and style for your articles. Don’t just throw in extra words because you feel like you have to hit a quota – it will just lower the quality of your post.
Post frequency is the core of a blog. A blog that only gets updated rarely will bring a company little benefit, and being able to keep up with your update schedule is a large part of what determines if your blog will be successful or not. To be useful and grow over time, a blog should be updated at least once a week. More posts are generally better, and daily posts make for an active and very useful blog with lots of SEO opportunities.
Start slow and stick with your posting schedule. Consistent posting is the best way to grow your blog readership and SEO benefits. If you want to start posting more, slowly ramp up over time to make sure that you can take on the added work. Inconsistent posting can appear sloppy, so you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew and end up failing. And remember, a blog is an important PR and marketing tool, so it makes sense to have a dedicated employee running it if you want a high frequency of posts. Cramming posting into an already busy schedule will result in low quality work, which is not something you want when the writing is a voice for your company.
Consistently follow these length and update guidelines and you’ll end up with a useful, quality blog that will augment your existing marketing efforts. The sky is the limit with a blog, and the longer you keep up with it the more valuable it becomes.
By: Nicholas Hancox
Client Says
We are implementing Plasma Ag Solutions across our network of locations. Plasma Ag provides several capabilities that stand out for our users such as Programs, Rebate management, and Inventory tracking. It is quite difficult to track margin information on crop protection products in our industry so our Owner Operators love the transparency the system provides. We utilize the system to professionalize our support to the network and it has become a bit success with all of them.
Several hundreds of our retail locations and joint ventures use Plasma Ag solutions as a part of their core operations. Plasma solutions provide very useful tools and deep insights to users – including tracking customer transactions and financial information. Their applications are tightly integrated with CRM, ERP, Accounting, and our other mission critical IT infrastructure and third-party systems. The dashboards provide rich analysis and insights that helps us adjust to the changing markets.
Plasma Ag solutions have been a tremendous asset to our operations. They offer powerful capabilities such as managing Retail programs, Products, Programs, local discounts, and wraps. Ability to track inventory at physical locations, calculating true and average costs, rebates and accruals on user-friendly and simple interfaces has helped us and our retail customers adopt Plasma Ag solutions quickly.
Our software, system and processes used to be an old struggling engine. Plasma team solved all that. With exceptional training and planning, their consultative executive team down to their support team executed the deployment with first-class speed and professionalism. Their platform not only removed all the pain points in my division, but also created a ripple effect benefiting my entire company.
It has been my experience that Plasma has the technical expertise, commitment, and work-ethic to deliver best-in-class solutions that allow business owners to fully realize business strategies and objectives. They work in a highly professional manner to ensure that the clients’ requirements and recommendations are fully realized. I would highly recommend Plasma for any web enablement initiative that you may be considering.
Plasma has been a smart choice for us as our online business partner. I don’t even consider our work with them outsourcing because Plasma management takes the time to truly understand our business and is able to direct its technology resources for the most efficient and quality output possible. I don’t think you can say that about many companies in their space.
Plasma has been a smart choice for us with our online requirements. I would recommend them to any company looking to better manage their online presence.
It has been my pleasure to work with the Plasma Team since August 2008. We have completed three major builds and multiple smaller projects in this time. I heartily recommend Plasma Comp to anyone needing a workable, practical and effective system solution. Plasma’s Q&A process was extremely thorough. They quickly understood what was needed and then worked the process with pointed and penetrating questions to ensure they had the entire picture of the finished product.
I think Plasma has come a long way in embracing our philosophy of becoming more agile, both leading and following in this area when necessary. The teams have been very open to change and have a great attitude. I have no complaints!
Plasma is a great vendor to work with. They took us from an email-based process to a fully designed, web-based workflow. They have dramatically changed how our devices are certified to be used on our network and they will save you time as well! One of the many processes in our current environment has saved us so much time; from four months down to a few days!
