We’ve all heard of blogs and articles, but are we all talking about the same thing? In content writing terms, there are a few important distinctions.
In broad brush terms blogs and articles differ in two ways:
- Tone; and
- The purpose they serve in your marketing strategy
With that in mind, I’ll walk you through exactly how each of these products can attract better clients to your business and keep a steady flow of enquiries coming your way.
Tone: Conversational vs authoritative
Blogs are conversational in style. They’re bite-sized tips and advice that answer your readers’ questions in a simple, straightforward way.
With a blog, you want your reader to feel like they’re having a chat with you. So you’ll address them in the second person, and talk about yourself in the first person. It’s a conversation between ‘you’ and ‘I’.
It’s like popping in on a very smart pal. Your reader stops by to get intelligent, but easy-to-understand tips (for free) when they need to ask you a quick question.
Articles on the other hand are more serious in style, and written in the third person. They’re well-researched pieces with reasoned argument and analysis.
Your reader looks at your articles to give them confidence that you’re an expert in your area. They want reassurance that you know what you’re talking about, and you’re a safe pair of hands for the work they want to give you.
Articles cover technical issues like case law updates, recent changes to policy, or particular trends emerging in an industry. Your reader wants to know how these issues affect them, and if you can apply your analysis to their particular situation.
Marketing purpose: Rapport vs expertise
The main purpose of your blog is to create more in-bound leads.
After reading a good blog, your reader feels like they know a bit about you – who you are as a person as well as what you do. You’re familiar to them, which makes your reader more likely to get in touch.
It’s similar to the way networking works. When they feel like they know, like and trust you, they’re more likely to instruct you.
The purpose of articles is to attract higher-value matters to your business.
With articles, you’re setting yourself apart as the expert in an area. You establish yourself as a leading authority and show that you know the complexities of your practice.
Your digital marketing strategy
When it comes to the mysterious world of the Google algorithms, nobody really knows how it works. But we do know that Google favours pages that rank highly on their EEAT credentials. That means that your website has to show your ‘Experience,’ ‘Expertise’ ‘Authority’ and ‘Trustworthiness’.
What those criteria actually mean is up for debate. But blogs and articles that are posted on your website will tick the boxes for all four of these areas (if they’re well-written).
But it’s not just the content on your website that Google takes into account. Google thinks your page has more authority if you have a good number of backlinks. That’s links from other websites that direct to your website. That’s where the technical articles can be particularly useful.
Your articles can be published externally in places like industry magazines and websites, and local and national press. Not only does that get you in front of clients in an elegant way, it will also build your authoritative backlinks.
Once Google sees you as an authority, producing high quality content, it’ll bump you up the search results pages. And as we all know, the higher up the Google rankings you are, the more inbound leads you’ll receive.
If you think that sounds like a good idea, and you’d like to outsource your blogs or articles to a professional, please do get in touch.