With every new prospect at Ghost Blog Writers we ask a couple key questions:

• What are your blogging goals?
• What are your website goals?
• What are your business goals?

These three questions along with a few other questions give us the insight we need to create successful blog content for clients. Now, sometimes people come to us seeking input on these three questions. Actually, most people ask for input on the first question and sometimes on the second question. We’re happy to use our experience to help businesses shape their blogging strategy. That’s our job.

It’s important for businesses to understand the goals of their blog. The blog needs to have goals so there is direction for the writers and accountability for the writers. Without the accountability the blog will just go on probably bringing in sales, but underachieving in the long run.

Blogging Goals

There are a variety of goals blogging and content marketing can achieve. Eloqua had a great post recently about the different goals a business blog can achieve.

From Proof Content is Marketing’s Most Versatile Tactic:

As you can see there are a variety of goals business blogs can achieve. I’d like expand on a few of the goals most of our clients at GBW look for with their business blogging efforts.

Common Business Blogging Goals

First, our clients are looking for qualified traffic. Now, the reason our clients are looking for traffic is because they want leads and sales. These two goals are highlighted above. Traffic is also about brand awareness. You want people to discover your business, but if you aren’t creating any content there is nothing for your potential customers to discover.

Second, our clients are looking for referrals. Again, referrals are a form of traffic, but referrals are also related to thought leadership. Our clients are looking to create content that their current customers will share with others that might be interested. This leads to new discovery of the brand and leads to more sales. Word of mouth marketing is still the best way to acquire new customers and blogging can help bring in those word of mouth referrals, but only if you’re creating content that people want to share.

Third, our clients want sales. This should be no surprise. There is no point of doing anything in a business if it won’t help the company grow. The ultimate goal of the blogging strategy is to earn more sales. That’s how we think at GBW and it’s how all of our clients think. Some expect the blog to generate sales. As we’ve seen in the past the average response rate for a blog is about 1-2%, but over time the cost for lead on a business blog is actually less than the cost of paid search acquisition or PPC.

What are your business blogging goals?

Have you been able to achieve those goals in the last two years with your business blog?