How to attract clients and new customers through your blog in the new year

Learning how to leverage your marketing efforts to attract clients, new customers, and email subscribers is an ongoing, evolving task for digital marketers. Considering the number of marketing channels readily available, it can feel endless.

This is your sign to leverage blogging for your marketing strategy.

While a blog is a big investment, it's a wide funnel that can bring new customers into your business from Google at any moment. A blog is a powerful place to both funnel in potential new customers and nurture your current customers.

Unlike social media, which has limits on how many images or minutes of video you can upload, blogging is an unlimited form of content marketing. Your blog doesn't have constraints — the stage is yours for as long as you can hold your readers' attention.

Your blog is an incredible place to establish credibility with readers and turn them from readers into buyers.

But blogging has both a higher reward and a higher risk; it's not like baking a cake where you'll learn in 25-30 minutes whether you've succeeded.

It often takes months for posts to rank on Google, and the lag time requires confidence in your blogging strategy and SEO in order to commit to a blogging plan that will actually bring more customers and clients into your business.

In this guide, you'll learn why a blog works so well at attracting new customers or clients. You’ll learn how to use the four-part strategy to building a blog that funnels in potential customers 24/7, plus the mistakes that cost brands a lot of ROI.

Disclaimer: All trademark rights belong to their respective owners. Third-party trademarks are used here for demonstrative and educational purposes only, use does not represent affiliation or endorsement.

How to attract clients through your blogs

The ever-growing list of marketing channels is enough to leave any small business owner's head spinning. When weighing the ROI of social media, cold calling, email marketing, traditional marketing, blogging, and more, it's easy to feel uncertain of where to invest.

While most brands choose to leverage social media in addition to having a blog, a blog has special benefits that need to be considered. 

Here are the five areas where a blog excels:

1. Expertise

While expertise can be displayed on social media platforms, a blog presents a special opportunity to display your experience.

Social media platforms have limits on how many images, minutes of video, or characters you can post at one time. Social media users also open up each platform with a specific type of content in mind: They want videos from YouTube and TikTok, longer-form content from LinkedIn, and pictures and videos from Instagram. Each platform is limited by user behavior, whereas a blog combines all forms of media.

Because a blog is unlimited, it allows you to bring together the educational power of text, images, and video into one engaging medium. It's an unrivaled way to demonstrate your expertise. 

2. Searchability

If you wanted to find an Instagram post from a celebrity that you saw five years ago, how much work would it be to find it? It would be incredibly difficult because content on social media isn't searchable.

While social media platforms have a search function, it will never be as powerful as Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most powerful feature of your blog. 

A well-written post can rank in searches on Google and bring your target audience straight to your website for months or years.

Once a blog post is published, it can (and should) be updated. Blog posts have incredibly long lifespans and are an unrivaled inbound marketing tool.

3. Ownership

Each business owns its blog. But every single social media account online can be jeopardized. Instagram accounts get hacked or accidentally deactivated all the time. YouTube channels can be demonetized. Pinterest accounts can be mistakenly suspended.

Your website is controlled exclusively by you, and it's incredibly powerful once you learn how to write to sell.

While you can still leverage social media for brand awareness, the target customer base you've gathered there can be lost if the platform shutters (remember Vine?) or is banned in your country (looking at you, TikTok).

4. Attention

Your blog isn’t like YouTube or Facebook where there’s always other content just a tap or scroll away. When people come from Google to your website, they are connecting with you alone. It's an unshared stage: You have the mic and are able to answer readers’ questions as long as you keep them on the page. 

Additionally, you can't even be sure that all of your target customers belong to the other marketing platforms. Everyone uses Google, but not everyone uses TikTok or Instagram.

5. Connection

Your website is the heart of your content ecosystem, and the most powerful thing that a new website visitor can do is start clicking around to different pages on your website.

This comes down to the “Rule of Seven.” This is a theory that someone needs to have seven touchpoints with a brand before they’re willing to make a purchase. These touchpoints are easily achieved on a website and take much more time on other marketing channels.

Four-part strategy for attracting new customers through your blog

There are approximately 7 million blog posts published per day, and most of them will never increase sales. Not every blog post needs to be poised to sell, but a hefty percentage of the posts that brands create should be bringing in new customers.

Let's go over the four-part strategy for writing blog posts that attract new clients and customers, plus the most common mistakes that many brands make.

Part 1: Write the right content

Generating sales through your blog relies on creating the correct content. This is no different than the rest of your content marketing strategy, but given how long a blog post takes to craft versus a TikTok video, it's important to be on course from the onset of your blogging strategy.

There's a piece of advice that's often shared when it comes to choosing blog post topics: Write content for your ideal customer or reader.

The No. 1 mistake: Just writing content that your ideal customer would enjoy.

Using this as your sole compass for blog writing will lead to a lot of wasted effort. Why? Because enjoyment does not equate to sales.

If it doesn’t lead directly to your paid offer, it's not going to bring new viewers in and generate profit.

While all of your content should be enjoyable for your potential customers, it's not a selling factor in itself. Blog posts that attract clients need to be relevant to your offers above all else.

Profitable blog post ideas

Here are six prompts for writing profitable blog posts.

1. Why [problem you solve]? Example: A social media manager could write the blog post "Why your Instagram reach is low."
2. 10 tips for [results users want]. Example: A language-learning app could write "10 tips for learning a new language."
3. What is a [your product/offer]? Example: A skincare company could write "What is a face roller?"
4. Is [topic] really worth it? Example: An online personal trainer could write "Is a personal trainer really worth it?"
5. Guide to hiring/buying [offer]. Example: A freelance writer could write "Guide to hiring your first freelance writer."
6. [Topic] comparison guide. Example: A keyword research tool could write "How [our product] compares to [our no. 1 competitor]."

When doing your keyword research, you need to critically examine the relevance to your offers. Here are some examples of blogs that are writing posts that are poised to sell.

Profitable blog examples

Here are examples of some highly profitable blog posts that successfully bring potential customers in from Google directly to paid offers.

When a frantic bride Googles "bridesmaid dropped out," they're lucky to find an article from the Bridesmaid for Hire, a company that has both free and paid wedding resources.

When a pool owner Googles "protect pool from snow," they'll be directed to an informative guide from Pool Supplies, a website that sells pool supplies and educates pool owners on proper care and maintenance.

These blog post topics are all successful at bringing target customers into paid offers because they show up on Google. This leads us to step 2 of attracting new customers through your blog: optimize blog posts for search.

Part 2: Optimize blog posts for search

All of these blog posts, while poised to bring in more customers and advance their marketing strategy, are relatively unpowerful without SEO.

It's estimated that 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. SEO is where the potential of blogging lives: the opportunity to have Google send leads to your website 24/7 is unmatched.

The no. 1 mistake: Falling back on the muscle memory of academic writing instead of pushing yourself forward to learn how to write for search engines.

SEO isn't a dirty term. You're not trying to "hack the algorithm" — you're trying to explain your article so that Google knows when to show it to searchers.

A blog post, no matter how well written, has not lived up to its potential until it's on page 1 of Google. Here are the basics of how that happens.

The basics of website SEO

At the heart of SEO are keywords. Those are the words that you type into Google when you're searching for something. The main keyword that your article is targeting is called the seed keyword, but there are also many other keywords in your articles that provide context so that Google understands your content.

For example, an article about Paris needs a lot of context before Google understands what it's really about. It could be about Paris, France. Paris Hilton. The Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS).

The keywords that add context to your seed keyword are called related keywords. In its simplest form, search engine optimization writing is the act of using your seed keyword and related keywords in the right places so that your content ranks on Google.

Some of those important places are:

• Blog title
• Blog headings (H2s, H3s)
• The first 100 words of the article
• Throughout the article
• Image names and alt text

Easy tip: Use SEO software to help you write your articles. You'll enter your seed keyword, and it will generate the list of relevant keywords that will help your article rank. Keysearch is a budget-friendly software resource, and SurferSEO is more robust for those with a budget to spend.

Part 3: Build trust with potential clients

Once you have readers on your website, it's time to woo them. You can't do this by jumping straight into your sales process, for two reasons:

1. New readers don't know you yet, so they don't trust you enough to make a sale.
2. Readers came to your website for a specific purpose, and that needs to be fulfilled.

If someone Googled "direct mail marketing campaigns," they want to hear ideas for their own direct mail marketing strategies, not just be sold on your services related to this.

You can turn new readers into more customers, but only after showing them your expertise.

Freely share your expertise

In order to attract clients and new customers through your blog, you must convince readers of your expertise.

This isn't achieved by hiding your knowledge behind a paywall or making readers join your email list to learn from you. It has to be immediately clear when readers click through from Google to your website that you:

1. Know what you're talking about, and
2. Can help them with their problem

Why? Because if you don't make your help freely available, they'll instantly hit the back button and return to Google to read from someone else's website.

Your free content must give readers confidence in your industry expertise or they'll never convert to paying for it.

Here are ways to show your expertise to your blog posts:

• Sharing social proof:
  • Testimonials from current customers
  • Number of happy customers
  • Amount of money made
• Simple step-by-step instructions
• Custom imagery
• Answering FAQs
• Video tutorials
• Screenshots

That may sound like a lot of work, but when you strategically leverage your blog posts via your other marketing channels, you can both attract and nurture.

Easy tip: After you publish a new blog post, share it with current customers via your email list. Continuing to share free value will turn email subscribers into loyal customers.

As you're writing, ensure that you make your blog posts about the reader.

Make your blog posts about the reader

New customers learning to trust you start with them having confidence in your expertise. This is instantly sabotaged when businesses make their blog about themselves instead of about the reader./

Your customer base, no matter how much they like you, does not want to hear you talk about yourself for a 2,000-word article. Your writing always needs to be about them.

The no. 1 mistake: Centering yourself in your writing and teaching through "I" or "we."

"We" statements like, "We're thrilled to announce..." have a vague corporate, business-news tone that should be avoided. This is easier for a small business to avoid, given that larger companies may have entire marketing teams collaborating on articles. If you must use "we," use it sparingly, as with "I."

It's okay to refer to yourself while writing, but resist the urge to overuse it by filling your blog with "I" statements.

"I" statements are very common in amateur blogs. This writing crutch comes from a lack of confidence and gives readers the feeling that they're listening to someone talk about themselves instead of learning from a reliable source.

Exercise: Count how many times you use “I," “my,” or "we" in a blog post.

Take the majority of these "I" statements and flip them around to make them about the reader:

• I ran ads on my client's account for 30 days and I saw a 300% increase in sales. ❌
• After running ads on my client's account for 30 days, they saw a 300% increase in sales. ✅

You are not the subject or the hero of your blog. The reader is the hero, and you're their guide as they tackle whatever problems your business solves.

Keep yourself in the narrative without centering yourself in it.

Examples of blog expertise

Let these blog post examples inspire you to wow your audience with your expertise.

This blog post about new regulations in China does a great job in summarizing complex information and making it easier for the reader to understand how it impacts them.

Why this works: This information is highly complex, and by making it easy for readers to parse it, this writer builds an incredible amount of trust.

This tutorial on how to contact Pinterest uses screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and warnings of common pitfalls to build trust with readers.

Why this works: The step-by-step explanations make it easy for readers to implement advice without needing to Google another tutorial to help them execute it.

This guide on things to do in Perth, Ontario, provides personal photos, opening hours of businesses, and local insights on what specific cafés are known for in the area.

Why this works: With the additions of localized insights, the writer makes it clear to readers that they're a reliable source of personalized information, not just another generic ChatGPT-generated post.

In order for your blog readers to convert to new customers, you need to make your offers visible.

Part 4: Lead directly to offers 

Once readers have come from Google and you've helped them solve their problem, they then need to discover your offers.

This is the final step to generating new business from your blog readership, and it's one that's easily overlooked.

The no. 1 mistake: Assuming that readers will stumble upon the offers on your website without being directed there. You need to lead new customers exactly where you want them to go.

How to display your offers

I've studied many blogs, from small businesses to large corporations, and I've found that many companies have lost customers by failing to share their offers in different ways. Just as the Rule of Seven taught us, one mention of your products or services alone won’t attract new clients.

The number seven is unimportant, but it highlights an important realization for your content marketing strategy: Buyers need to be warmed up to your offers. This is best done through multiple brand touchpoints in each blog post. 

There are many ways to make your offers visible on your blog, such as the following:

• Inline invitation halfway through your blog post inviting readers to download a freebie
• Timed pop-up directing users to your services page or shop
• Banner across the top or bottom of web pages
• Calls to action (CTAs) in your website footer
• Graphic in your website sidebar

What offers to promote from your blog

You can extend any offer to your blog readers once you've fulfilled their search needs. These offers can be free products or paid.

Offer free or discounted products for blog readers who join your email list. Invite readers to view your services page and hop on a discovery call for your services.

Consider cross-promoting any of your content, free or paid, to readers:

• YouTube channels
• Other blog posts
• Services pages
• Product pages
• Memberships
• Email opt-ins
• Podcasts

It's okay to invite readers to another free form of content. In fact, this can be an extremely effective marketing strategy as long as it ultimately leads back to your paid offers.

Mindset: If it doesn’t eventually lead to your paid offer, it's not going to generate profits.

Examples of blog offers

After sharing tips on how to stay safe in summer, the American Red Cross promotes their free app.

Why this works: It offers a much more in-depth resource for readers and turns a one-off interaction into a long-term relationship.

After bringing you into their tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme, WPBeginner then promotes their free plugin in the sidebar.

Why this works: This is directly related to the reader’s needs, and thanks to the trust built in the tutorial, users will be primed to convert.

After bringing readers into their guide on how to string a guitar, Acoustic Life promotes their free guitar workshop in their website header and sidebar.

Why this works: Promoting the CTA in multiple places helps improve the odds of conversion.

Next steps 

Are you ready to expand your customer base by expertly leveraging blogging? Blogging to generate new business is a big task, but when you work it into your marketing plan correctly, it'll be well worth it.

This time next year, you could be attracting new clients and customers passively through Google. The work is worth it!