It’s just a little over noon in my part of the world - which would be Sweden. I am having a bit of a lie in and thought I’d better write some more blogs about content marketing for your equine business.

Today I am going to take a closer look at how you can create the perfect blog post - and to perfectly honest with you that can be a challenge. I’m sure those readers who already work with Content Marketing can probably relate.

You see it can be difficult to find topics, especially the good topics are hard to come across. If your equine business has been blogging for some time, you may feel that you have already covered everything that’s relevant.

I often get questions about what to write about in a blog post, and many also inquire into the graphic content; should the blog contain images?

To make a long story short, there are a many things to consider when writing the perfect blog post for your equine business. So I’ve collected a number of tools that you can use - so you can get scribbling!

Let’s take a closer look shall we?

Finding topics for your equine business to blog about

Finding topics is one of the most difficult things for many equine businesses. Sure it’s always easy at first - you have a lot on your mind, but then it often dies down, and this can be frustrating (I can sign off on that).

So what can you do when this happens?

The best thing about online marketing is that you are marketing your equine business ONLINE. Yes, it may sound a bit self-explanatory, but when it comes to content , there are a variety of tools that you can use when generating new blog post ideas for your business.

Let's take a closer look at some of these tools…

#1 The top content marketing tool (Psst it’s really as SEO tool)

When you’re considering a blog for your equine business it’s really important to figure out which words are searched for related to your topic. It’s important because not only can you check how many people actually search for your services or products – you can also gain insight on questions they may have. 

One of the tools I love to use for keyword research is called ahrefs. Ahrefs gives you the great option of an inexpesive 7 days trial for 7$. You can get a lot of keyword research done in that time ( just remember to unsubscribe before the 7 days are over so you’re not charged a slightly more expensive monthly fee).

Let’s see what I find when I type in the term “dressage”:

As you can see in the above results you also gain access to questions that people type in and how many people search for them on a monthly basis.

Questions that you can answer via your content. These questions are also know as long-tail keywords they are usually easier to rank for in the search engine.

#2 Research published content

If you have ever published a magazine, a one pager or a white paper then you’ve probably heard about this next tool called ISSUU . Issuu is one of the world's largest publisher sites, and offers a great source of inspiration on topics your equine business could apply in your equestrian content marketing strategy.

Once again I type in the term dressage and I get an array of results:

But even better this tool allows me to can open the magazines, read the table of contents and this way I can quickly skim through what topics they’re writing about and get some great inspiration.

Take this example from British Dressage Magazine:

The above is a feature about how to choose broodmares that breed great dressage horses. If I were a dressage trainer this could give me the idea to create content with tips about how to choose a future dressage horse based on lineage, temperament etc.

#3 Discover what content engages readers

This has to be one of my all time favourite content marketing tools. I’ve used it on almost every project I’ve worked on and every company i’ve worked for.

Buzzsumo is a tool that gathers content from across the web and divides it based on the number of shares via. social media - pretty neat. This is how Buzzsumo allows you to find the topics, or blog posts, from your competitors that perform best on social media.

Let me give you an example.

So perhaps you are a dressage trainer and you’re looking for new topics to write about.I found a website called www.howtodressage.com – they blog quite a bit about dressage.  Let’s try entering  the name of the website in Buzzsumo and see the results:

The above results are the 5 most popular posts from howtodressage.com – clever right?

This overview also reveals how much engagement the blog gained when shared on their social media accounts. This is pretty powerful information, as this indicates how good an engagement rate you could get from similar blog posts revolving around dressage tips.

I hope you’re getting an itch to write by now?

You can also insert search terms in Buzzsumo to gain some blog topic inspiration for your equine business.

Lets type in dressage tips and see which results we get:

This time the overview gives you insight on the most engaging pieces of content revolving around the search term “dressage tips”.

This is super helpful as although your blog post may revolve around a specific topic you might want to incorporate other information that either overlaps or is super relevant in context. This is where Buzzsumo is an absolute gem of a tool.

#4 Setting up and formatting your blog

Now, that you’ve got some good resources in hand to where you can find inspiration for your blog there’s one last thing that’s important to know about.

The way you format your blog online matters.

Quite a few people think it’s enough just to post a bunch of content and then their equine business is setup for success. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the outcome (even though that would be grand wouldn’t it?).

Please remember that people are born scrollers. Hence making sure your blogs aren’t o dense in their formatting can help give your visitors and easy to read experience, ensuring they don’t leave your blog prematurely because it’s to annoying to get through.

he above example is from a blog post off howtodressage.com. It’s a really great example of eas- to-read blogformatting. Make sure your blog has air between paragraphs and help your readers find what they are looking for by adding headings and subheadings.

#5 How long should a blog post be?

The successful blog post incorporates knowledge (from data) of how lengthy your blog posts should be. This data should include insights on how long a reader spends time on your content.

If you’re not a data nerd try asking colleagues, family and friends and hey even your readers how long they read before they bounce of your page and lose interest.

A tip for blogs that revolve around a demanding and dense topic- try cutting up your knowledge about the area and make a blog series. This keeps you from writing blogs that are too superficial on an important topic for your equine business, and it keeps readers engaged.

Key takeaway

Wow, this is one of the more lengthier posts.

I hope I didn’t lose you!

I also hope you can use some of my favourite tools for your own content marketing and find them useful in your equine business.

If you are applying other helpful tools that we all should know about when it comes to equestrian marketing please comment below and share your own tips.

Last but not least your blog does not only exist to get you rankings on Google. Your blog should exists because your equine business exists and you have a mission, a product or service that can help people in the equestrian world.

Remember to let that shine through in your writing - you’re sharing to help your readers, so just like the saying about riding form the heart goes, the same can be said about blogging.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re equestrian business is a dressage horse breeder that’s looking to help people find their new dressage star or a start-up in the equine world looking to relieve barn mangers from administrative tasks. The keyword is helping. That needs to shine through in your content.

Nothing beats writing from the heart because you’re looking to help people succeed.

So the last tip will have to be always remember it’s never about you or your equine business. It’s about the people you serve , and how lucky your are to be able to pass down your knowledge to someone who can use it constructively.

Happy blogging!