By now, it is likely that you have been working hard to conduct more of your business online due to COVID-19. You are finding new ways to update your operations and connect with clients virtually. While you may have updated your website to help consumers find your business online, are you truly leveraging content marketing to showcase your expertise? 

Blogging is one of the top forms of media used in content marketing strategies in 2020, according to Hubspot. A regularly updated blog can be an excellent opportunity to highlight your industry knowledge and answer frequent consumer questions. But how do you make sure your blog is set up for success?

Here are four simple steps to get started:

1) Plan blog content to showcase your expertise. Remember that the best blogs highlight content that is relevant to potential consumers. Resist the urge to directly sell to your customers. Instead, highlight trends and industry knowledge. 

To get started, Google insurance topics for ideas, and find out what you can add or if you can bring a new perspective to these topics. You can also use paid keyword research tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, or Moz to uncover the most searched words and phrases.

A great blog can not only help your site rank higher in Google searches but can also show customers that you are a reputable, knowledgeable source. Customers who trust your content will spend more time on your site and visit more frequently. These customer actions reinforce your value to Google, which also leads to higher search rankings.

2) Use Google Analytics to find your most visited content. Connecting your site to Google Analytics will enable you to assess your site's performance. The Behavior tab shows how many people are visiting each page on your website. This information can help you improve your sales funnel, identify content gaps and leverage content.
The Acquisition tab displays how visitors are finding your site, so you can see who is coming through search engines, social media sites, emails or by directly typing in your web address. 

3) Write a great title. A well-written title can make or break your post's performance. Some best practices include using numbers, asking questions, using simple language and leveraging positive sentiment. 

Check the quality of your titles by leveraging free tools like ShareThrough or CoSchedule, which can give you tips on how to improve your titles based on best practices. 

4) Check all website pages for unique title tags and page descriptions. When a link appears in Google, it includes a title and a short page description known as metadata. When written well with the right keywords, this is one of the easiest ways to improve your search engine optimization.

You may have previously updated your page descriptions, but it can be easy to forget to add them for new blog posts, especially after you've worked so hard on them! These updates can usually be added easily in the backend of your site. If you use WordPress, the free Yoast plugin is a great resource.

Kelley Smith is director of traffic generation, Trusted Choice®.

Need content ideas? Big “I" members should check out Trusted Choice's Content to Share resources online.