Post updated, July 2023.

Your job as a business owner is to solve client problems. Not only are you doing that with your products and services but you should be doing it with your blog.

Write for your audience.

If you want to write a post about receiving an award or going to an amazing place, it will exclude your potential client. Because the harsh truth is no one cares. If your content is all about you, that’s not how you solve client problems with your blog. If you can’t create posts in a way that will attract people to buy from you, don’t blog for business.

Creating blog content is crucial in lead generation. Every piece of copy and content that relates to your business has to be about the client and how you help them, yes, I know, this all seems obvious but you’d be shocked by the amount of self-absorbed business websites that exist.

Despite hating marketing terms, so much of it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t mean that every strategy the ‘gurus’ spout is right for you (or even true) but still, this stuff works for a reason.

If you struggle with why you should blog, click here to see what I have to say on the subject.

How to find solutions to client problems.

Sounds like an impossible task but if you know your ideal client well, and have tailored your business world around them, this shit should be easy.

Become your client.

I’m going to need you to adopt the acting techniques taught by Lee Strasberg (not really). The reason Brando and Pacino were (and are) such consummate actors is down to them getting inside their characters. I’m not asking you to try a different accent but what I am saying is that you search on Google as your prospect.

Google the topics you want to cover.

Take a look at those results and check out the structure of the titles and descriptions. What clues do they give you? How well are they constructed? How relevant is the content to those titles? Go ahead and click the URLs—read the content. Does it answer the query? Could you expand on the subject more effectively?

Create solutions from Google searches.

Can we all just pretend for a moment? Can we imagine that you’re a wedding photographer who specialises in destination weddings? Thank you, much obliged. Picture in your mind, silly (foolish) newly engaged couples excited and itching to find their perfect wedding suppliers. They want inspiration, yay!

Yawn.

They might google:

‘Destination wedding ideas’ or ‘the best luxury wedding destinations’ or maybe ‘how to create a destination wedding on a budget’.

If you’re a destination wedding photographer (or chimney sweep/pest controller/FBI agent), you can create content around those searches.

Your past client work will also help you create new blog posts for potential clients. Write content from scenarios you’ve already experienced. You might have already solved the problem prospects are searching for. So, if you’ve already got a few destination weddings under your belt (or even one), write a post that will help users find out how it works, a sort of Ultimate Guide To Destination Weddings.

Understand your clients’ user intent.

Say what? Lemme explain, when we search online we do so with intent. That intent could be to buy something or to learn something. We have a clear intent before we jump on Google. Your clients have problems that are centred around your industry but they’re not always after a product or service, they may just want information (in view of buying from you later). That means they’re searching with informational intent and some of your targeted keywords and phrases will reveal informational results.

If you’d like to find out more about intent and how it impacts keywords, click here.

How do you solve your own problems?

Look at your online habits (god help us). When you want to buy a product or find info, you’ll type in a phrase with keywords that are specific to the subject. That’s what your potential clients are doing. You see, this is why you need to know everything about the people buying your stuff.

Ultimately it’s about your objective and why you create any content in the first place.