Blogging 101: Why Bother & Key Elements of an Effective Blog

If you are not blogging you are missing opportunities to generate website traffic, build your credibility, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. In fact a study by Tech Client found that featuring a blog as a key part of your website will give you a 434% better chance of being ranked highly on search engines.

5 reasons you should be blogging on a regular basis.

  • It can help you attract new customers. Your blog posts will attract the search engines and subsequently new visitors. If your blog answers the visitors question or attracts their interest you have just found another qualified lead.
  • Blogging 101: Why Bother  and  Key Elements of an Effective BlogBlogs and RSS feeds often rank higher in search engines than traditional web sites. If you design your blog properly, then every time you update it the search engines are notified. Even if you don’t regularly ping them manually, most search engines will revisit blogs more frequently. Plus the very organization of a blog lends itself to good search engine ranking.
  • Blogs can help you establish or build your reputation in a particular field because your posts demonstrate your knowledge in your chosen niche.
  • If you add affiliate ads, or sell ad space on your blogs you will have another revenue stream.
  • Blogs are great ways to generate leads. Even if you don’t want to put any advertising on your blog, you can use it to promote or capture leads for your own programs. These are great leads as the fact that they came from your blog means they are already interested in your topic and predisposed to your individual message.

As you can see there are several benefits to starting your own blog but before you start create a good strategy including these key elements.

Know Your Keywords

These are the search terms your ideal client is using to find answers to her questions. When you know what your keywords are, you can easily create blog posts that will:

  • Attract the right visitors to your site
  • Position you as the expert in your niche
  • Make it easy for your ideal client to find—and get to know—you and your services

Write for People

While it’s important to know and use keywords in your blog posts, it’s even more important that you write your content with people in mind over search engines. Your blog should be engaging, informational, and even entertaining, but above all else it must be readable.

Be Consistent

Bogging is very much a numbers game. The more content you produce, the greater your results will be. That means setting—and sticking to—a content production schedule is a must.

For most websites, a weekly schedule is both attainable and sufficient to build a steady stream of traffic.

Keep Long-Term Goals in Mind

Blogging is not a fast business-growth strategy but it is excellent for long-term sustainability. Those posts you write this month will continue to work for you many years from now, bringing in more and more traffic and potential clients.

Use Good SEO Practices

Aside from keywords, great bloggers know there are many techniques you can use to bring in more readers, including:

  • Link out to authority sites from within your blog
  • Link internally to other, related content on your own sites
  • Use graphics and sub-headlines to break up long text passages
  • Take the time to write compelling meta descriptions
  • Create content that other sites will link to

Get the Word Out

Each new blog post is an opportunity to be seen, so take the time to share your content socially, and encourage your readers to do the same. Share your post on your Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and anywhere else your ideal client is likely to see it.

Mix It Up

Not every post has to be a 3,000 word article. Include other types of content as well, such as:

  • Video
  • Infographics
  • Curated content
  • Short opinion pieces
  • Audio

Have Fun with It

Inject your personality into your blog. Not only will you more easily attract your ideal client but you’ll enjoy blogging a lot more if you use your authentic voice. And the more you enjoy it, the more likely you will remain consistent as well.

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Author: Karen Repoli

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