Want to grow your blog? Here’s how.
There are over 152 million blogs on the internet, with a new
post being published every 0.5 seconds. So you might be wondering how on earth
to get your blog posts to be noticed on such a crowded world. It’s not easy –
it’s no longer an option to just publish a blog post and hope that people find
it. They won’t. But there are some things you can do to increase the chances of
your blog posts being found and read.
It starts with the planning
If you’re planning on publishing regular blog posts for your
business, it really pays to have a firm plan in place. These are sometimes
called editorial calendars, content calendars, or blog calendars, and without
one, you’re creating a whole lot more stress for yourself.
There are plenty of places where you can download blueprints
for blog planning, or you can create your own using MS Excel. Or you could use
an online tool – I personally love Trello for this, and also project planning.
The key to a good blog is to be regular and relevant – if
you consistently show up with blog posts that people are interested in, then
they are likely to come back and seek you out again.
Know what it is that you want to talk about in your blogs
(this is where that handy calendar comes in), so that you can properly research
it before you write it. Think about how long you want your posts to be, the
tone of voice, and the information you want to convey.
Keyword research
There are loads of way in which you can research trending
keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases people use to search on search
engines such as Google, and knowing these helps in your blog planning. Try
tools like Ubersuggest and Answer the Public – type in the proposed title of
your blog, or a word or sentence which best fits what the blog post will be
about, and these tools will tell you exactly what people are searching for
around that subject. It also gives you an indication of popular web pages and
blogs which also contain those words, and serves to give you plenty of ideas
for other blogs you should be writing!
Images and tags
We live in a visual world – platforms like Instagram,
Facebook and LinkedIn are all now favouring photos and video. So when you are
writing your blog posts, don’t neglect to think about the images you will use
to illustrate them. If you can use your own photographs, that’s perfect – just
make sure they are of a high standard and fit with what your blog is about.
Otherwise, you can use one of the many stock image websites (some are even free
for basic images), or sites like Canva which allows you to create all sorts of
images and graphic which are full customisable, even in the free version.
Do your research, and use image tags which are searchable –
people often search for products by image on Google too.
Update, revise, and repurpose
To make sure that your blog stays relevant, go through your
feed every now and again, look at the statistics, and remove or update anything
that has failed to grab your audience. If there are posts that have done
particularly well, think about why. What was different about them? Did they
cover a specific topic that was popular? Can you perhaps push it again through
your social media, or even write another blog around the same subject, offering
more information?
You could also re-post popular posts on LinkedIn Articles –
opening up a whole new audience.
If you have posts which did well, but have outdated or old information,
update it, and then share it again, telling your audience that you’ve revised
it with fresh news and information.
How to share your blog posts
There’s no point in putting in all the effort of writing,
researching, and editing your blog post if no-one ever reads it. Once you hit
publish, the chances of anyone ‘happening’ upon your post are virtually non-existent,
even with keywords. Unless you are well known and rank high in Google (which
takes a lot of hard work), you need to push your posts yourself.
Of course, the best and easiest way to do this is via social
media. Be cautious, though, as certain algorithms mean that if you share links
to outside sources too often, you could be penalised for it. So even though you
can share your posts, make sure you don’t use social media just for this
reason.
It takes time and effort to get people to read your blog
regularly, but it is definitely worth it. If you want to create regular blog
posts, but don’t have the time or the skills, I can help. From conception to
creation, I’d be happy to advise – please contact me for a friendly chat.