The freight industry tends to be behind when it comes to modern marketing trends. It is time you start using content marketing to grow your business. This means using social media, targeting keywords, and blogging. The trick to making these efforts successful is to do them the right way.
Your online marketing strategy should be a two-prong approach. The first part will be paid ads. The second half will be content marketing. Blogging falls into the second category.
Freight blogging or blogging about logistics will help establish you as an authoritative figure in the industry, gain new clients, and strengthen your relationship with your current clients.
So let’s make your blogging efforts a success by following these six tips.
1. Check Out the Freight Blogging Competition
To be competitive, you need to know what the competition is doing. This will help you create a strategy that differentiates you from everyone else.
You can also learn what works and what doesn’t. Use your competitors to learn, so you avoid making the same mistakes.
2. Promote Your Content
Your job isn’t done after you write and post your content. Once your content is live, you need to promote it. This means publishing it on your social media and other locations.
This will help you generate traffic to your blog. It will also help you establish those prized backlinks everyone talks about.
Creating backlinks this way is more effective and within Google’s guidelines. Take note that Google has some strict rules about backlinks that many content mills ignore.
Here are some places you can share your blog posts to generate traffic.
- Any social media platform where written content makes sense
- Relevant forums where you are an active member
3. Keyword Research Is Important
Writing blogs is only half of the equation. Each blog you write needs to target a particular keyword. Anything can be a keyword; these are the terms that people put into Google when looking for something.
Here are some example of common freight-related keywords
- LTL freight
- Freight forwarding companies
- LTL shipping
- Freight shipping companies
- Freight rates
- LTL freight carriers
You can target one or more keyword in each post. Just be careful to not stuff your posts, this will trigger as spam for Google and hurt on your SEO.
There are three metrics you should focus on when choosing keywords to target.
- Search volume- this is how many people search the term in a given period of time
- CPC- this is the cost per click that others pay when targeting this keyword in AdWords
- Competition- How much competition is there for the keyword?
It is best to spread out your efforts. High volume words will get you the most traffic, but also tend to be more competitive. This means it will be harder for you to rank well.
Lower search volume means less traffic, but also less competition. It may be easier to target these words in the beginning while you learn the ropes.
4. Choose Quality Over Quantity
Some content firms focus on quantity over quality. They will want to sell you large blog post packages and stress that you need to have a constant flow of content.
This is not the case, though. You need a steady flow of content, but that means consistency, not volume. It is better to post one well thought out and informative blog a week than three rushed blog posts.
Focus on providing unique and useful information in each blog post. This will result in people staying on your website longer. The longer they stay, the more likely they are to book their shipment with you.
Readers staying on the page longer signals to Google that you have good content that others would like to see. This means you will begin to rank better.
5. Figure Out the Purpose of Your Freight Blog
Before you start writing blog posts, you need to have a plan or roadmap for your blog. This will help you stay focused on posting relevant content.
Often you will see logistics blogs that talk about industry news and developments. But let’s take a step back for a moment. Do your customers care about the latest freight industry news? Probably not.
So how do you know what to write about? Start by answering the questions that your customers ask you. Create a list of the most common questions you hear when booking someone’s freight shipment.
Now write blog posts that answer those questions. Consider this blog; for example, you are here because your current efforts aren’t working, and you are looking for help. So you are now on a blog that answers that question for you.
6. Track the Performance of Your Blog
If you aren’t tracking your website’s performance, that you are missing out on a huge chunk of useful data. Now is the time to create an account and start tracking.
By tracking your blog’s performance you can learn what works, and what doesn’t. This will help you tailor your future blog posts to be more appealing for your audience.
Start Freight Blogging Today
Are you ready to make your freight blogging effective? All you need is informative, relevant, and unique content. By blogging the right way, you can make your blog useful.
Aim to create content that is useful to anyone visiting your site. Work to establish your blog as an authoritative voice in the industry.
If all of this sounds like a lot of work, you’re right it is. Instead of spending your time learning to blog, let an expert handle it. That way, you can focus on your business. Let me focus on your content marketing.
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