Content marketing is always one of the top strategies of digital marketing agencies. Blogs play an important role in content marketing. When used in the right way, they can pull a lot of traffic and build exposure. They are a great way for business websites to connect with customers, thus strengthening the brand. It is also a cost-effective way to promote any business. Blogs with useful and engaging content can:
- Generate leads
- Grow your business
- Build your brand
According to HubSpot’s sixth annual report of inbound marketing and sales trends 2014-15, site organic sources such as blogging, SEO and social media are rising in importance.
These simple steps will help to get your blog post found on Google as well as other search engines.
Keep readers in mind
Always write for your readers. Always write something what they may need to know such as solving an issue or some unique insights in to the industry dealt with. Have answer for these questions before you begin a blog.
- Who your readers are?
- What is your target audience?
- How well do you know them?
- What do they want to know?
- What problems do they need addressed?
Provide informative and valuable content
Your website’s authority in the industry mainly depends on the value of the content you provide. Informative content have the power to turn readers into customers. Instead of posting monotonous posts regularly, it is ideal to post useful blog tutorials daily or on a weekly basis. Search engines like Google no longer look for specific keywords and to answer the queries of the user. Rather it looks for content and makes their own conclusions as to what your website is all about. So it is ideal to think the way your readers might search for information
Along with giving genuine information, in digital marketing agencies also recommended adding videos or infographics to increase credibility. For instance, if you are talking about SEO tactics, it is better to include a recent video about what Matt Cutts said about this topic or to include an infographics that gives clear idea about the topic.
Choose effective blogging platform
With user-friendly blogging platforms such as WordPress (WP), you can customize the design, write posts and can also easily publish videos, photos, galleries, and slideshows. With WP’s clean coding, search engines can easily read and index a site’s content. Make sure to choose better SEO plug-ins like Yoast that offers a ‘Snippet Preview’. With this option, you can find how your Meta data will appear in search engines. This plug-in will also tell you how obviously your ‘keyword’ features in the different elements of your meta data.
Use social media
A blog post, however engaging and useful, will not make any difference unless it is discovered by the audience. Social media platforms provide opportunities to drive traffic to your blog. Major sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and YouTube. These are powerful tools to promote blog posts as they have millions of subscribers.
Interact with readers
Your blog is a conversation. Though it begins with the information you provide, it continues with comments from readers, and with comment and criticism from other bloggers. To keep your content interactive, make sure to post questions, polls and contests for your readers. This will keep them deeply involved in the conversation.
Focus on Headlines and subheadings
Ensure that the headline you write focuses on readers and not search engines. Boring titles with expected keywords will work no longer, according to digital marketing agencies. Sub headings or H2, H3 tags should also be up to the point. The right choice of these tags helps you to create a digestible, readable and easily scannable post.
Writing great guest posts for other blogs can draw new readers to your blog. Using analytics will help digital marketers as well as bloggers to keep track of how people arrive at their blog and then use this information to improve their blogging tactics.