Choose topics your potential clients consider interesting and helpful. For example, a mortgage broker might write about the home loans and property markets; an accountant might write about tax tips and business strategies. The more relevant your blog topics are to your clients, the more interesting and helpful they’ll find your blogs.

The key is to keep thinking of new angles on old ideas. For example, if you’re a buyer’s agent, you could write updates about different property investment markets around the country. While each blog might contain the same type of information about listings, prices, rents, vacancy rates and days on market, because the data would always be new, the blog would always be new. If you’re a financial adviser, you could write about investing strategies and money management in all your blogs, but make them seem fresh by always relating the content to something that had recently happened in the news.

As a general rule, more blog content is better than less, because that makes you look more active and knowledgeable to potential clients. As a bare minimum, you should publish one blog per month. If you could do one per fortnight, that would be even better; if you could do one per week, that would be better still.

There’s no ‘right’ word count. Rather, your goal should be to use as many words as needed to deliver your message. The best blogs are both detailed and concise – and, no, that’s not a contradiction. Readers like detailed blogs, because they find them helpful. Readers also like concise blogs, because they find it easier to absorb information that’s delivered succinctly. So write blogs that provide your readers with valuable detail, but present that detail as concisely as possible.

The number one way to optimise your blogs for SEO is to fill them with content that is interesting, relevant and helpful – because Google and other search engines like blogs that provide readers with valuable information. You should also: naturally insert relevant keywords into your blogs, title tags and meta descriptions; write descriptive headlines and subheadings; use header tags; link to relevant webpages internally and credible websites externally; update your blogs in the months and years ahead as new information comes to light.

The two main tips for writing attention-grabbing blog headlines are to open loops (which can only be closed with information in the blog) and entice readers with the promise of a better future (which can only be achieved with information in the blog). You should also include strong verbs (or action words) in your headlines and, where possible, insert numbers and use the word “you” (or “your” or “you’re”).

Ironically, the best way to generate sales from your blogs is to not be salesy, but to be helpful. Follow this four-step process. First, identify a clear problem your clients want to solve – for a financial adviser’s clients, it might be retiring early. Second, choose a blog topic that directly addresses that problem – e.g. “How someone with a $150k salary can retire by 50”. Third, write a blog that explains, step by step, how readers can solve that problem, to prove you’re an expert. Fourth, end with a call-to-action that tells readers to contact you if they’d like you to solve their problem for them.

If you want more people to read your blogs, do these three things. First, make sure your blogs are interesting and helpful – not boring and salesy – so people actually want to read them. Second, share your blogs on social media and with your email list, so more people know about them. Third, do ongoing SEO (search engine optimisation), so your website ranks highly on search engines and people discover your blogs when they do a Google search.

The five biggest mistakes businesses make with blogs are: not sticking to a regular publishing schedule; writing boring, salesy blogs that no one wants to read; being verbose; writing in a stiff, formal tone; and using business jargon rather than plain English. To succeed with blogging, you need to write interesting, easy-to-read blogs and publish them on a regular basis.

Maybe. If you have the skill, discipline and spare time to write interesting, easy-to-read blogs on a regular basis, you don’t need to hire a professional copywriter. If not, you should outsource the job to a professional blog writer.