If you are going to take the time to write a blog, you’re going to want to build up a large following. A loyal readership will make the entire experience worth it. Plus, the more people you can get to read your blog, the more traffic you’ll get to your site and the more attention you’ll drive to your products, services and overall brand. If you hope to keep a successful blog that drives traffic and boosts your business and brand image, follow the following tips and tricks to a T and you’ll soon see how powerful a blog can be for marketing your business.
Who Is Your Audience?
Before you write a single word, you must know who your primary audience is. If you just start writing blogs about any old subject, it’s going to be hard to attract that loyal following because your online rankings will be all over the place. It’s far better to stick to one subject so that you can target your blog marketing efforts to a select group of individuals.
If your business deals in office furniture, for instance, you’ll want to stick to blog subjects that have to do with exactly that. You might offer tips for picking out office furniture, news about upcoming pieces of office furniture, tricks for to how to get office furniture to really sheen and so on.
The more you know your audience, the easier it will be to give your audience what it wants. If you hope to host a successful blog, you must conduct plenty of market research to find out what sorts of blog subjects would appeal most to those who might find and read the blogs you publish.
This can be done by monitoring social network chatter, by doing online searches and seeing what sorts of blog and forum results show up and by asking your friends and followers on social networks what they think. If you have a subscriber email list, that’s even better. Who better to tell you what you should write about than targeted subscribers who are already interested in what you’re offering?
Once you have your audience pegged and you know what sorts of subjects and titles would appeal to them, your next step is to conduct keyword research.
Keyword Research
If you want your blog to be seen and read by lots of people, you should work on finding those hot keywords that will help your blog become visible the most. Your job is to find highly searched for keywords in your niche that don’t have a lot of competition.
You might already have some idea of the keywords your prospects and customers might be using to search for your products and services. If so, use these keywords in your blogs to increase your rankings and your blog’s visibility. Don’t stuff your blogs with keywords, but definitely include them to appease Google and the other search engines.
Engaging Titles Are Crucial
Your titles must stand out and they must grab the reader by the collar and pull him/her in. Top Tips, Tricks and Hints work best. You can also do Top Mistakes people make or Expert Advice, something along those lines. If your titles fail to gain attention, your blog is going to fall flat. Work on those titles and only choose ones that get attention.
Over Deliver For Blog Success
Your titles should give your audience some idea of what your blogs are about. Make sure you give your readers the information they seek and then some. If you’re offering Top Tips for Working Out, you may want to offer some cool down tips as well. Even small amounts of extra information will go a long way in the readers’ eyes.
High-Quality Photos
Try to find relevant photos to pair with your blogs to help them stand out and to break up the content to make it easier on readers’ vision. Make sure your photos are named using your keywords and always include Alt Text with your photos so that the search engines pick them up and rank you accordingly in Image Search.
Photos will also give readers an instant idea of what a blog is about and will often entice them to click on your blog to read what it’s about much more than a blog will that’s lacking a photo. This is a really simple but effective blogging tip.
Get The Conversation Going
The ultimate goal with a blog is to get the conversation flowing in the comments section below. If you can intrigue your audience or provoke thought, you might get them to comment. Make sure you respond to those comments and try to get a back and forth communication going. If you want, ask a question at the end of your blogs such as, “What do you think?” This gets the dialogue going and that can help you build that loyal readership you hope for.
Remember to keep your blog active if you hope to reach and maintain total blogs success. If you use these tips and you keep providing the search engines with fresh, relevant and quality content, you’ll soon see why so many marketers choose blog marketing to get their messages out to hungry audiences.
