We all know how important it is to have a content strategy for your business and one of the easiest ways to produce consistent content is through blogging. Luckily for you, blogging is one of our specialties, and we are here to give you ten tips on how to make your blog more successful and drive bottom line results.
1. Have a Plan
Before you have even written a word, the best thing that you can do is have a plan and measurable, actionable goals. This includes knowing who you are writing your blogs for, what the topics are going to be, how often you are going to publish your posts and most importantly; what your metrics for success are.
You could be writing amazing posts, but if you don’t know what your goals are, you won’t know how successful they are. For example, are you measuring the amount of page views each post is getting? Or is it the number of leads you are generating from the blog overall?
Knowing and understanding these metrics will help you remain focussed and on track to reaching your end goal.
2. Be Consistent
Once you have established your plan and you know what your goals are, you need to be consistent in carrying them out.
One of the biggest reasons that blogs are not successful is because consistency has not been factored in the process.
Setting goals and having a plan is a great foundation, but the people directly involved in the process need to actually carry it out. For example, if your goal is to do three posts per week, stick with that number.
Eventually you will start to see results from the goals you laid out.
3. Use Calls to Action (CTAs)
This might seem obvious to some people, but it cannot be emphasized enough how important a good call to action is to the success of a blog. CTAs are useful because:
- It offers another piece of content to the person reading your blog and it keeps them on your site longer
- If your CTA lead to a landing page, you are able to get their information and learn more about them. This results in targeting future posts at them and personalizing their website experience
- It gives you measurable results from your blog. Having that CTA shows that blogging is a tool that generates leads and revenue
4. Keep SEO in Mind
These days having a good SEO strategy does not mean stuffing your post with keywords.
So what equates to a good SEO strategy? Writing relevant content that people actually want to read. So rather than worrying about if you have enough keywords in your posts, you should be focussed on is your content is actually good and if someone would want to read it?
5. Sweat the Small Stuff
You always hear people say to not sweat the small stuff, but in the case of blogs the small stuff matters.
For example, keeping your posts short, concise and in the 500 word range goes a long way in keeping people’s attention. If they do run longer, utilize subheadings, bolded text, and bulleted lists to attract the eyes of people who are just skimming through.
Additionally, make sure your spelling and grammar is on point. Nothing will ruin credibility like a poorly written blog. A mistake here and there is okay, after all everyone is human and it’s bound to happen.
Just make sure it doesn’t become a habit.
6. Measure Your Performance
One of the most basic metrics is also one of the most important ones. Visits are the count of people who actually read your blog content. It’s interesting to look at your total number of visits to measure the overall improvement of your blog.
Looking at success factors for individual articles helps you better understand the type of content your target audience is looking for. Look at your five most successful blog posts. What do they have in common?
7. Measure Blog Generated Leads
If your blog isn’t generating leads for your business, you are missing a huge opportunity. Leads are what fuels the growth and success of your business, and they are also the true measure of a successful blog.
Look at the leads you are generating from a blog post, examine at what rate these leads convert into customers compared to your other marketing channels.
8. Track Inbound Links
When an external website links to a page on your website, we call this an inbound link. Search engines use inbound links as a method to determine how pages appear and rank in search engine results.
Blog posts are usually educational rather than product-centric, making them great for generating inbound links and subsequently, search traffic.
9. Measure Subscribers
It takes a reader more than one blog post to develop an understanding of your expertise and credibility within your chosen industry. By giving the reader the opportunity to subscribe to your blog is a common characteristic of a well-planned blog.
Measuring how many people subscribe to your blog will provide a solid indicator of the quality and consistency of your content.
10. Watch Social Media Shares
Social media can be a key driver of short-term traffic. Although looking at the historic social media shares of your blog posts to determine which types get the most short-term traffic from social media.
Compare that data to the number of visits or leads to see if there are any major inconsistencies. What could they be due to, and how can you use them to your advantage?
Measuring the performance of your blog regularly will help you to identify weaknesses in the type content you’re producing.
Then you can modify your blogging strategy to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t to make all the time and effort you’re putting into your business blog truly worth it.
Happy blogging!
