It’s rare to find a website that doesn’t include a blog these days, and for good reason. Blogging is a great way to communicate with your audience in a more detailed and personal way; it also provides a massive boost for your SEO. Having a blog is one of the easiest ways to improve your traffic, and your personal relationship with your audience.
Simply writing a blog isn’t enough. You need to know how to use it effectively in order to get the most out of each post. Every topic should be relevant to your audience, whether it’s addressing questions of concerns they’ve raised, informing them about upcoming or past events, or giving more detail on who you are and what you do. Most important, have fun!
There are a number of steps you can take to make your blog even more successful and help your brand rise above the competition.
Test Your Work
Split testing your blog headlines can be a great way to find out what your audience responds to. Do they respond to fun, silly headlines? Do they like factual and to the point headlines? Finding out what your audience wants is paramount to a successful blog. Watching traffic is the most effective tool in finding out what they want to see.
Listen To Your Audience
Chances are, you know what you want to say, and you know what you think is most important about your field. However, that will not always line up with what your audience needs. Jump onto social media, both your own page and others, and see what people are talking about. Finding questions that people need answers to is also a great way to find your topic. Sites like Quora.com are great resources to use in to see what people are asking. If you address what your audience wants, they will keep coming back to you.
Make It Shareable
Those small icons you see for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter you see on nearly every blog you read? Those are essential tools for you to take advantage of. Making your content shareable with the simple click of a button will lead to far more shares, and a much wider audience than you could get with simply posting to your audience. That tiny icon will make for huge gains.
Get The Word Out
The very first thing to do after hitting “publish” is to get your blog out there! Get it on every channel you have quickly. Tag influencers or pages relevant to your article. Share it on your personal pages and in Facebook groups. Getting it out there quick means you’ll get traction quickly, and keep your site relevant and on the cutting edge of current trends.
Link To Yourself
Backlinking to your previous blog articles is one of the best ways to improve your SEO and get more page views. Keeping people on your site is not just beneficial to your time on page statistic; it also helps you look like the authority you are on your brand and in your field. Even if the links aren’t being clicked, the boost to SEO is enormous, so get those links in!
Blogging needs to be a part of any strong social media strategy. If you don’t have a blog, it’s time to make one. And if you do, it’s the perfect time to refresh your image and make it even more effective!
