Awhile back I wrote about my own personal blogging challenge. As I mentioned before, blogging is often overlooked as a marketing tool, but it’s an extremely valuable marketing tool. But it can also be frustrating, especially when you’re just getting started.
Here are a few tips on creating a successful blog:
- Know your audience: Are you trying to acquire new customers or to retain existing customers? Are you trying to appeal to other businesses or local media? More than likely you will have several different audiences that you are trying to reach.
- Create a content calendar: This will help plan your topics in advance. It also helps you keep a regular posting schedule. On a side note to this – do not feel like you have to post every single day. It’s better to post a few times a week with good content then every day with mediocre or fluff content.
- Don’t be too salesy: Your audience is inundated with sales messages all day long. They are reading your blog to learn more about your business and your industry. If you don’t present valuable content you will never gain or keep readers.
- Cross-post your content: Once you post a blog entry, don’t be afraid to share it on your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts. Also, make sure your blog is easy to access from your website. If you use images or videos, you can also pin them to your Pinterest account.
- Engage in the blogging community: Comment on other blogs and add relevant blogs to your blogroll. The more link backs you get, the more searchable you become.
Remember, building an audience takes time. But as you are creating and sharing strong, valuable content you will start to be viewed as more of a thought-leader and active member of your community. This will lead people to trust your brand and go to you first for your products or services.
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