10 tips to get the most out of your blog
Writing a blog is a labour of love. When it’s finished, we want our readers to enjoy it, interact with it and share its content. But every blogger knows getting visitors to their blog is hard. Getting them to read and interact with it is harder still. If your blog metrics have you despairing, there is something you can do about it—develop a consistent method of structuring and promoting your content
Taking a methodical approach to how you lay out your blog, what sorts of images you use and how you communicate about it, can make or break its success. Putting a few simple steps into place which you take each time you finish a blog will go a long way to improving its visibility among your target readership.
Before you publish
1. Create a compelling title
Don’t underestimate the power of your blog’s title. It’s the first thing a potential visitor to your site sees. It needs to be short and persuasive, encouraging visitors to click, read your blog and engage with your content in some way. Don’t use the first title you draft. Write a few and use CoSchedule’s simple tool to analyse their effectiveness. It’s amazing how much difference changing one or two words can have on the effectiveness of your title. [LINK]
2. Make it easy to read
One quick and easy way to put your readers off your blog is to present them with a sea of black and white text. Break up your text and make your blog easy on the eye by using titles and subtitles to group similar topics together. Make your paragraphs short and scannable using a variety of sentence lengths. Pop out key phrases using bold or italics. Include relevant imagery to add interest. The more you can do to make your blog look appealing the better.
3. Include a call to action
You should always include a call to action (CTA) at the end of your blog. A CTA should be one specific action that you’d like your reader to take. It could be a request to share your blog on social media, a question to encourage discussion in the comment section or a link to another post (on your own platform) for further reading. Don’t confuse your readers by including more than one. Keep your CTA clear and focused for maximum effect.
4. Proofread your copy
I have to admit a certain bias here as proofreading is one the services I offer, but I really can’t emphasize enough how important it is to proofread your blog properly. I know that by the time you’ve finished writing your blog, you could probably recite it word for word. But that’s the problem—you know it so well, you don’t see the errors. With so much content flying around the internet, you want yours to stand out for the right reasons—well-written, quality content that solves a problem for your readers—not because the typos put them off.
And if that’s not a good enough reason, remember that search engines may not index your content at all if they feel there are too many grammatical errors or misspellings. If you haven’t got the spare cash to invest in a professional to proof read your copy, follow these tips for improving your own proofreading skills.
5. Include on-brand imagery
Who doesn’t love a good image? They add colour and personality to elevate even the humblest blog. But like everything communications, consistency is key. Make your life easier and create templates for your images that use the same fonts, colours and overall design. Taking this consistent approach means your images are quicker to create, always on brand and your business look truly professional. Remember to make sure your images are searchable by changing your image alt text (name) to something that includes one of your keywords and makes sense for your blog.
After you publish
1. Communicate about your blog
You’ve put a lot of time and effort into writing your blog and this is your time to shout about it! Develop a communication plan so you know when and where you’re going to publish and who you’re targeting. Give your new blog post as much exposure in as many places as you can—email your mailing list, include it in your newsletter and post about it on your social media feeds. Use your plan to keep you on track.
2. Share on social media
As soon as you’ve written your blog, you’ll want to share it on the social channels that you use. Give your readers the opportunity to share it more widely by including share buttons for platforms you don’t use that they might. The more shares, the more traffic, the more potential customers!
3. Use a social media scheduling tool
Use one of the many social media scheduling tools (Hootsuite, Feedly, Buffer) to plan when and where to share your blog post. Social media feeds – particularly Twitter – move quickly, so it’s worth following up your initial share a couple of times to give it a better chance of being seen. Automating your social posts means you can plan when, where and how often you share your blog—then sit back and relax while the tool does the work for you.
4. Respond to comments
Your goal as a blogger is to build a loyal audience who enjoy engaging with your content. Once you’ve started promoting your blog, watch out for comments and respond to them as soon as you can. Responding promptly is a great way to build a relationship with your reader and help them develop trust in your brand.
5. Check analytics
Sign up to Google Analytics so you can check page views and comments regularly. Keeping an eye on your blog stats will show you which blogs are most popular and help you plan topics for blog posts that you know will appeal to your readers.
How do you make sure you get the most out of your blog? Leave us a comment below.