Introduction to Blog Page
Long back, you had only a few categories of writers who created content- novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, short-story writers, columnists, and academic writers. With the advent of the web, more people entered the fray, called bloggers. In this topic, we are going to learn about the Blog page.
These days businesses also have blogs to drive traffic and promote business – a key element of inbound marketing strategy. Thanks to free platforms such as blogger.com, just about anyone could create a blog page and start writing on anything. Reportedly, some successful bloggers made their first million within a year, but most didn’t reach anywhere.
Tumblr.com and WordPress.com are popular platforms to start building your business blog page.
Top 10 Tips to Drive More Traffic
Here are ten tips for driving more traffic and generating more business for your blog page:
1. Choose a topic relevant to the industry
Suppose you are in the IT industry, household appliances, e-learning, financial services, health and fitness, automobiles, banking, accounting services, agri-business, or any other business category. An IT services company should write on topics related to the IT industry, not consumer products, movies, personal finance, or food recipes, however popular they may be. In that case, taking relevant topics to your business or industry is better.
Nobody reads a blog page just for the sake of reading or to find an amazing piece of literature, such as a novel or short story. Your customers are better served if the topics are relevant, address a problem, or help them use your services better. The two most important question to address when writing a blog page is: how unique is the topic, and how will it help my target audience?
A stockbroking firm can have blogs that help their clients understand the trading techniques, top companies to watch, and new trading regulations and how they impact them. If some writers have already written on a topic, we must try to find something new to add or give a new unique angle to the issue or debate. A well-written blog page will be worthless if it doesn’t address the consumers’ concerns, pain points, or needs.
2. Importance of length, headline, intro grammar, spelling, and typography
It was believed that content length didn’t matter on the web, but recent research has shown that the longer the content length, the more traffic it will attract and the higher the probability of being shared or talked about. The typical content length for a blog page would be 1800 to 3000 words.
Pay special attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Poorly constructed sentences and grammatical errors can harm the reputation of your business. It is very important to have someone proofread your blog post and a content editor to edit them for clarity and typographical errors.
So much content on the web is trying to grab readers’ attention. Hence, give importance to headlines – an attractive headline can pull a reader into your story, which is the first thing they see in a search result. Analysts say eighty percent of readers read the headlines, and only 20% read the body text.
Questions, numbers, adjectives, and so are all attention-grabbing. How to reduce the debt burden on credit cards? How to increase your monthly income without earning more? How to reduce energy costs at home? Some interesting adjectives that can be used are- free, fun, incredible, essential, thorough, and strange. Another success formula for headlines is a combination of adjective, keyword, and promise – Eg. Effortlessly reducing 8 kilos in two weeks, Ten secrets to attaining more returns on mutual funds, Five principles of successful stock market investing.
Keep sentences short and small. Avoid flamboyant words that require the reader to check the dictionary for their meaning. After the headline, the most important part of the article/blog is the intro. It should be interesting and engaging and create curiosity in the reader to read more. A great article should have bulleted texts for easier reading. There should be subheadings that differentiate different themes from the blog articles to enable easier reading. Bold letters and italics should be used where ever relevant to make the text scannable and appealing.
3. Pay attention to search engine optimization (SEO)
In a library, books and topics are indexed on the basis of authors, topics, and keywords. Thus, members can find out if a book is available and, if so, on which shelf. When it comes to book publishing services, indexing plays an important role, too. Just like in a library, the right keywords and categories can help readers find and access any book on the internet easily. Likewise, when millions of websites and blog articles provide content on various topics, search engines index them on the basis of topics and keywords.
With rapid algorithm changes in the past few years, it is no longer easy to follow a particular strategy and expect results. Google no longer looks at the frequency of keywords appearing in an article but whether it has more information related to the keywords. This shows that keyword stuffing may not help at all. Yet providing tags and keywords to your story greatly help Google crawl your blog tips and search for relevant content to index. There is no harm in looking at Google Keyword Planner or Keywordtool.io to find the higher ranking keywords, but ultimately, keywords should be used as guideposts for search engines to find out what the blog tips or article is all about.
4. Pay attention to the quality of the article
You may have the best headline, identified the top-ranking keywords to use in the article per SEO guidelines, and has a great intro; grammar and punctuation are perfect. However, still, you may not attract readers if the content quality is poor. The blog articles shouldn’t be too subjective, just blurting out your feelings about a particular issue or topic. It should have data, statistics, or techniques to help the reader.
There must be references to customer testimonials, quotes by experts, research data, quotes of influencers, and your opinion, which should be mentioned and not passed off as fact. If the content is stuffed with keywords but has only a little content relevant to it, search engines may not index them for it. Therefore, lose out on page rankings related to that topic. Similarly, if the article is based on your research or offline survey data, its popularity in the searches will improve. A good example is this Small Business HQ article, which not only provides excellent, profitable rental business ideas but also backs them up with statistics, expert tips, and considerations.
5. Make your blog page pictorial
A picture is more than a thousand words, and infographics or videos are much more. A photo, illustration, table, chart, or anything visually appealing adds value to an article and is more likely to be read. Using an online image editor can help you quickly enhance these visuals to make them even more engaging and professional. If there is more than one picture, it should be numbered Pic-1, 1.1, etc., for ease of reference in the article. It is better not to use copyrighted or random images available on Google search when using pictures. Still, royalty-free images are available from sites such as FreeDigitalPhotos.com, Pixabay, and Shutterstock. However, if your original images are used, they will appear more visible in searches. If you publish an original photo, you can attach a copyright symbol and indicate that the use of the image by bloggers or websites should be acknowledged by a link back to the site.
6. Share on social media
Your blog articles are more likely to be noticed if they are shared on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google +, among others. There should be social media share buttons for the social media platforms for readers to share. With more people spending time on social media, more and more publications are using that platform to get noticed by readers. Before launching the corporate blog page, post the information on the company’s social media platforms and website.
Also, the blog tips can be submitted to relevant blog listing sites. A press release can also be sent to media sites, and email announcements must be made. Besides social media, the blog page can be popularized through online communities such as Scoop.it and Storify. It has been found that organic search and reach through Facebook and Google have come down rapidly in recent times. Therefore, running AdWords on Google and boosting advertisement options on Facebook and Twitter makes sense.
7. The frequency of blog posts and editorial calendar
If the frequency of blog posts is low, your ranking in search engines and recall by readers about your blog maybe decline. However, too many irrelevant posts will not add value to your offerings. It is better to have an editorial calendar and identify the list of topics covered by various writers or contributors to the blog page.
Once you have a clear idea of the audience, and the industry you are related to, identify a list of 20-40 topics and estimate the time required to complete them. Then allocate them for the coming months and the writers who will write them. Examine the website and blog content to see whether a particular type of content is more engaging on specific days of the week. Have calendar apps such as CoSchedule, Trello, or Google Sheets to create the editorial calendar.
8. The blog page must have a central point or theme
It is better to have a central theme for the article rather than try to cover too many areas and lose focus. It gives readers a point to focus on and share with others. There must be a proper structure with the introduction, the key topic of the article and its accompanying data, visuals, and a conclusion. If the article is an open-source platform for big data, it should focus on the relevance of the open source for such technology and its advantages. The reader can engage if the website has relatable content.
9. Each blog page should have a proper call-to-action
The purpose of a blog does not end with reading the blog post and just forgetting about it. The blog articles should conclude with a call-to-action for registering, downloading an e-book, registering or subscribing to a service, or directing to another related article on the site.
10. Don’t make it corporate-speak
Your blog page should not be a direct marketing effort – with production promotions, company information, and achievements. The blog articles should establish your credibility, competence, and authority in the industry by giving quality content relevant to the target audience. It is vital for establishing a relationship with the reader. Stories, experiences, and case studies are good formats for the blog rather than presenting facts alone. Stories capture the reader’s attention, and some studies show they can influence the reader to read the whole article.
Conclusion – Blog Page
It is an effective platform for building your brand and reputation in your industry. However, it is not an easy job and requires certain skills, patience, and consistency to make an impact on the target audience. There is no substitute for quality content and too much emphasis on keyword targeting. Sometimes humor and satire can also help build your audience. Apart from your blog tips, you could also be a guest blogger on other sites.
As in any other activity, the best way to learn is to look at the better-performing blogs and how they structure and market content. Avoid copying or rephrasing content without adding value to it. Proper attributions for data or quotes used in the blog will enhance your credibility.
Each industry may require a different strategy to get across to its audience. There is no one size fits all formula that can always work. Moreover, search engine and social media dynamics are changing frequently, necessitating close monitoring of readership metrics.
Recommended Articles
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