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No marketing effort is ever complete without harnessing the benefits of blogging. It is the foundation that you need for a successful SEO strategy. Blogging populates your website with valuable and relevant content that your visitors keep on coming back to and allows you to optimize your site to rank in search engines.
Your blog content is also vital for social media promotions, lead generation, and sales funnel. Want to grow your conversions through Google Ads? A blog can supplement this strategy by providing something of value to those who click on your ads.
If you’re not entirely convinced yet, you may take a look at the wealth of benefits that blogging can usher in for your brand:
- Driving traffic to your website
- Converting traffic into leads
- Cultivating trust and loyalty
- Increasing your conversion rate
- Solidifying your site’s authority through link-building
- Providing evergreen content for your social media pages
- Establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry
While the advantages of blogging are endless, many businesses find it a challenge to start one. It’s an understandable apprehension, as this marketing tool requires maximum time, effort, and commitment. It’s not something you begin without a strategy in place, nor is it a whim that you can leave in midair when you lose steam.
Your blog, just like your other digital channels, needs cultivation and nurturing. There should be consistency and longevity. You can’t simply publish a blog post three times a week when you’re just starting and suddenly stop after a month.
But that’s the problem. It’s hard to remain consistent day in and day out, churning out great content here and there. Or is it? Great blogs can be produced in a few easy steps. Here are some effective tips to help you get started.
Analyze Your Market and Target Audience
Before you start dipping your toes into creating compelling blog posts, you must first look at the bigger picture. How well do you know your market? Who are you creating content for? Knowing and understanding your target market can help you think of fresh, original, and relevant blog topics that resonate with your audience. You can try creating buyer personas. Get to know the people you’re trying to communicate with.
Here are some questions to guide you in creating a good buyer persona:
- Who are they?
- How old are they?
- Are they employed?
- What are their motivations?
- What are their fears?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
Brainstorm Your Blog Topics
Now that you have a fair idea of who your audience is, it’s time to roll your sleeves and get on to the tricky part—brainstorming blog ideas. This is where you decide what types of blogs you will be creating. Will you include pillar pages, long-form articles, short blog posts, videos, infographics, and listicles? Once you’ve narrowed these down, you can start listing down blog topics that will suit those blog types.
Think of how-to guides that will allow you to feature your products or services. There will be a sprinkle of tips, offers, and other helpful blog posts that will help your audience solve their problems in one way or another. You might want to include testimonials from your loyal customer base. The possibilities are infinite. Just make sure to create a bank of topics that you can go back to in case you need a guide or inspiration. Even better, you can consider creating a content plan with all the important dates marked so you will know when a particular topic can be most applicable. This will also help in keeping you on track with your blogging goals and KPIs.
Craft Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Headlines can be tricky. A lot find this step the hardest to pull off, mainly because you have to make it appealing and effective in not so many words. Keep your headline sweet and short, ideally around 65 characters or less. Headlines present clear opportunities to insert relevant keywords for search engine optimization. However, it’s vital to note that it should be done as naturally as possible. Try to summarize what your blog post is all about in the headline without giving too much away. You want to pique your readers’ interest enough to compel them to click on your blog title and read the whole article to satisfy their curiosity.
Whatever you do, it’s safe to err on the side of caution. Don’t try to create headlines that are no more than clickbait. Simple, powerful, and honest language seals the deal.
Make Use of Effective Subheadings
Subheadings are valuable indicators for search engines to focus on. You want the algorithm to zero in on the most most important parts of your post. But do you know they’re helpful to readers too? By breaking down your long blog post into short, bite-sized paragraphs, you’re making it easier for readers to read to the end. If they simply want to skim through your article, they can always do so, and they will understand it all the same with the guidance of the subheadings. Making the subheadings attractive might encourage them to read the paragraphs below.
Capture Your Topic in the Body
A killer headline and subheading are not worth it if you don’t follow through in the body. This is the meat of your blog content, the part where you tell your readers what the title is all about and how it can be of value to them. This is where you make it worth their time to click and scroll.
Your blog post body should complement your appealing headline. It is an excellent opportunity for you to hold your readers’ attention until they get to the very end. This bit is crucial if you want a favorable nod from search engines. For example, Google wants visitors to stay on the page longer. Doing so means they enjoy what they’re reading, and there will be fewer chances of them abandoning your blog page in a matter of seconds, which can hurt your bounce rate and SEO standing.
Use Eye-Catching Images
Many people are visual creatures. Your content might be a great read, but many won’t appreciate a text-heavy offering. You want to spice up your blog with a few images that can easily catch your readers’ eyes and help advance your blog topic. It doesn’t always have to cost a thing either.
There are a lot of sites offering royalty-free photos that you can use. Choose photos that encapsulate what your blog is all about. It’s also crucial to ensure that they reflect your branding. Be consistent as much as possible.
Don’t Forget Your Calls to Action
Photo by Sincerely Media from Unsplash
Writing blog posts doesn’t end with a conclusion. You want readers to take away something useful from your content and aim for them to take any action that can benefit your brand. It can range from inviting them to sign up to your email list, clicking on a link of related content, or downloading a guide or the like. Hence, the need for a solid CTA. Calls to action are great opportunities to generate leads and nurture customers.
Proofread and Edit It Like a Pro
Your job doesn’t end once you’ve typed the full stop. If you want your readers to take you seriously, you must create a blog post that’s consistent and devoid of grammatical errors, misspellings, and typos. Your audience could get turned off by less than polished blog posts. That’s why you must proofread your work and edit the errors you’ve overlooked. There are online tools that can help you do just this, even if it’s only as simple as detecting misspelled words and typos, which are honestly unavoidable sometimes.
In Conclusion
Blogging is highly beneficial in growing your business. It’s also quite helpful in optimizing your content for search engines. The more valuable the content you put out there, the better. You want your visitors to read your content, engage with it, and share it with their friends.
So much about this relies on the quality of your blog posts. It might seem challenging initially, especially if you just get started, but eventually, it will be a breeze. You just need to keep in mind these eight easy steps to guide you through.
