Blogging is essential for the success of your online marketing strategy – probably you have already heard it and we have also mentioned this before a couple of times. It is crucial to learn how to write articles that indeed support your business.
Without blogs, your SEO efforts are not worth much – you can’t advertise on social media, you have no bond with your customers and visitors, and you can’t motivate them to take action. Still, many new and existing businesses try to avoid blogging as much as possible. You should not follow their example. In this post, we’ll try to give you some tips on how to make your blog posts successful. Hopefully, this will make your task much easier.
Why are blogs important?
The best blogs provide useful information to readers and take a unique approach to the topic. A blog reflects that you care about your customers, your users, and eventually allows you to build a more credible and reliable picture of your business. From your SEO’s point of view, it is very important that blogs help you build links that is generate links from external pages toward your website. This will ultimately help improve the ranking of your page on Google’s search engine results page.
Tailor your blog topics to your Readers’ needs
Always ask yourself what your readers, your customers want. In some sectors, such as music or other type of arts, your readers are more likely to be interested in what you do, whom you meet, or what the latest trends are. However, in industries such as e-commerce readers might be more interested in how they can solve certain problems.
Grab your audience’s attention
One of the biggest challenges you face when you start blogging is building a loyal audience. When a reader first visits your website, the first thing they notice is the design, the appearance – the colors, the font, the layout. You might have already noticed that many websites are designed using either the same or at least very similar layout. They use similar images, almost identical layouts, and many are not too bold with colors either. BUT if you’re brave enough and there is something unusual on your website that will differentiate your web pages from the rest and make it exciting, it will definitely make things easier for you.
One more important thing: you’ll need a good title for every great post. After the design of your website, this is the first thing the reader will see, so make sure it sounds catchy.
Your blog posts should have excellent content
The length of your post is very important, you cannot write articles of only 300-400 words because you will not be able to get a good ranking in Google’s search results list and readers will not find your blog posts. However, the length of the blog is not the only factor to consider – posts must be filled with outstanding content. If you mix these two ingredients together, you’ll get an excellent recipe. The essence of a blog post is to provide answers – and readers usually want quick answers. That’s why it’s important to make your content easy to read, and use subtitles to help people quickly find the answer to their questions. Any time you post new content, if possible, give the exact source of information you have used to write your article. Keep in mind that your blog reflects your business. If any errors are spotted by the users or Google, you will lose credibility.
If you can, feel free to add a little story to your blog. You can use an anecdote in the introduction or insert a story in the middle of the article. Stories, examples based on personal experience can help people understand a point. It will definitely not harm your article but will make your writing more attractive to your readers and at the same time easier to understand.
Apart from that we all know that everyone learns differently. Some are visual types, others memorize things better if they hear it. But surely if you add a few pictures, charts or even videos to your posts, you can better illustrate what you want to say. Readers need visual aids, not just dry letters.
And just one last piece of advice about content: try to avoid spelling mistakes as much as possible. It requires more work, but the result will be a lot better.
Use external links in your blog
Even if you are new to search engine optimization (SEO), you might have probably heard that it is really beneficial to enrich your posts with external links. Links to high quality pages will make your website more authoritative and improve your search ranking. The use of external links has other advantages as well.
The fact that you’re willing to use external links shows that you care about your readers. Instead of eagerly grabbing every second of their attention, you provide them with all the necessary resources. If they click on the link, they can read the source to fully explore the topic.
Another important benefit is that linking to high quality and trustworthy sites increases your ‘digital footprint’. You are practically connecting these sites with your own website.
Always reply to comments
Why is it so important to respond to blog comments? Replying to comments will increase traffic to your site. If you answer to the comments, you can almost be certain that the User will return to your site or may follow you on Facebook. Answers help build a good relationship between you and your readers. Obviously, when a lot of users are following and reading your posts, not all comments can be answered. But when you are writing a blog as a relatively newbie, write answers as often as you can.
I almost forgot, just a quick tip: your tone should always be positive. Even if there is a negative comment, deal with the situation the best way you can.
Use infographics in your blog
The great advantage of infographics is that they are not only affordable but also incredibly effective in attracting the target audience. That is why they are often shared on social media, much more than textual content. Creating graphics requires a lot of research and knowledge but it also means that you will increase your credibility and authority for your readers.
Final thoughts
Blogging is an essential part of online marketing. Users, search engines, social platforms are constantly hungry for new content. Creating good content takes a long time, so it is important to practice writing blog posts and learn how to produce good content relatively quickly.
I truly hope that the next time you write a post, you will be able to apply this guidance and it will help you grow your business even more effectively.
Sources:
Neil Patel – 33 Things to Learn from 33 Top Marketing Blogs
Jeff Bullas – 9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing