Articles vs Blog Posts (and Which Do I Need?) 

Why You Should Be Writing Articles
 

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already on board with blogging—it doesn’t require much fact-checking, it’s mostly opinion-based, and you likely don’t employ a professional editor for each post you make. Whether or not this is prudent is something we discuss here, along with all the reasons why you should already be blogging.

Regardless of your stance when it comes to content creation for blogs, articles are undoubtedly a whole different ballgame.
 

Articles vs Blog Posts

 
So then, what really is the difference anyway? As we’ve established, blogs are generally written from a personal viewpoint and are largely opinion-based (even when not, they don’t require much fact-checking). They are like a chat with your friends over a beer on a warm summer’s evening—sure there are facts involved, but you’re rarely asked to show your source. Articles are more like a presentation you make to your boss when your company is looking to expand its product range—full of facts and statistics and backed up by data that is well-sourced and honestly represented.
 
This means that if your aim is to set yourself up as an industry expert, and you want to share what you know with your audience, you should be writing articles.
 
Writing articles and sharing them on the right platforms is one of the most effective ways to impart your wisdom and become known as an expert. Still not convinced? Here are some of the key reasons you should be writing articles:
 

Share What You Know

 
Sure your arguments are persuasive, but there’s a subset of your audience who are sitting at their computer reading along and mouthing ‘prove it’. This is where articles come in. They allow you to get down to the brass tacks for those statistically-inclined readers.
 
Have research that you’ve been working on? Share it with your audience. Come across some interesting research that changed the way you approached your job? Share it with your audience.
 

Inspire and Educate Your Audience

 
So writing articles is an excellent way to share your expertise with your audience. Though the content of your articles isn’t exactly a call to action, it does help build your brand’s reputation in your field, and the more trust you build, the more likely your readers are to come back to your website when they need information. If you update your site regularly and share your content to social media, you’ll start to generate an audience who appreciates what you have to offer. This helps to keep your company fresh in the minds of your readers when they need one of your services and shows them you really know what you’re doing.
 
So now you’re thinking, ‘ok, but my topic has been written about a thousand times already’. I’d urge you to see this as a positive, not a negative. If the content you want to write about has already been written to death, this is not a reason to shy away from the topic. Readers look for consistency when in the information they find online. This is the main way readers fact-check what they see. If your article aligns with the mass of materials online already, chances are readers will view you as a trustworthy source.
 
If you have information which goes against the status-quo, post that too, but be ready for some lively debate in the comments section (no such thing as bad press, right?) and make sure you’ve backed up what you’ve written with reliable data and named and linked your sources.

 
Increase Your Search Rankings

 
Besides the increased engagement from your audience and boost to your reputation, a nice side benefit of writing articles is they help you to be found easier through search engines. This is not a direct result of writing the article so much as it is an effect of populating your site with good quality content. Good content naturally contains a good number of keywords that people are searching for regularly. With an article rich in relevant content, you’ll be noticed by Google and other search engines’ algorithms, bringing you up the rankings and closer to the first page of results for those keywords.
 
Word of caution here—don’t assume that you can just slap a slew of key phrases together, call it an article and expect it to bring you new customers; on the contrary. A good article is first and foremost good quality content. This means content relevant to your audience, which is deeply informative and well researched. If you have achieved this, you will also have nailed your SEO for that article. This is why it’s worth higher a writing service if you intend to grow your audience. It’s hard to find time to write the odd article, let alone post regularly.
 
When you turn your writing over to a content writing service, you ensure your site is updated with quality content regularly, keeping you ranking on Google, your audience coming back to your website, and ultimately converting to paying customers in time.

 
How We Can Help

 
It doesn’t take an expert to put words on a page, but want to maximise the impact and conversion rate from that content? Here’s where we excel. The benefits of choosing a professional writing service like Pen and a Pad are as follows:
 

• Spelling and grammar mistakes put off customers. An analysis of website sales figures shows this is to no small degree. The analysis points to a single spelling mistake causing a cut in sales of as much as 50%. We parse all content we create for you in-house, using our professional proofreaders and editors. This way, we ensure your content is fine-tuned and error-free.
• Well-written content makes readers spend more time on your site, building brand familiarity and reputation. More expertly-crafted content means more sales.
• Out-of-date blogs make prospective customers think your company is out-of-date or even defunct. Keeping up a blog over time can be challenging, time-consuming, and coming up with new ideas all the time is a pain. Our writers are experts who specialise in many different industries. We never run out of ideas for content, so if you don’t know what to blog about, why not ask us to curate your content—topic and all.

 
Want to know more about how we can help you? Contact us.