5 quick tips for better blogging
There are millions of blogs on the internet today. Personal journal-style blogs, business blogs, travel blogs, community blogs, movie blogs, TV blogs, book blogs, and the list goes on and on.
Blogging as a business is a great way to increase your brand awareness, reach new audiences, establish yourself as an authority, and allow people to get to know the business, its offerings, and the people behind it better.
I run two personal blogs on my own, so I’d say it’s safe to say I love blogging and after a few years at it have a good handle on it.
But, if you don’t love blogging yet and aren’t sure how to get the most out of your blog posts, these eight tips can help you create better blogs and provide a more strategic approach to your posts.
Improve your blog posts with these five tips!
1. Know why
Before you begin any blog post you should be able to answer: Why are you writing this?
Are you writing to share news or call attention to a trend, inspire others through thought leadership, share a how-to, educate people on the history of something, or take a deep dive into an evergreen topic?
You have to know why you’re writing the piece or no one will understand why they need to read it.
Another thing to ask is: What is this post going to do?
Are you hoping to drive new traffic to the site, increase your brand awareness, grow subscribers, tell customers about a new product or feature launch, encourage shares on social media, or convert customers?
2. Write what you know
When ranking your blog, the search engines take into account your site’s EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trust).
Keep your blog posts in your industry or wheelhouse. For example, a wedding planner who posts blogs with car buying advice or movie reviews doesn’t demonstrate good EAT in the wedding planning business.
Aim to be helpful with your content by answering questions or solving your customers’ problems – which is something that will easily build your credibility.
Write what you know and what you’re qualified to write about to build your reputation as a trustworthy source. Add to your credibility by doing research and including statistics that back your blog post, quotes from industry experts or influencers, or link to important studies on the subject to show you’ve done your homework.
With a business blog, try as much as possible to keep your posts unbiased and don’t use too much self-promotion. I respect brands that don’t just talk about themselves or don’t have a CTA to contact sales every other paragraph. If you do your job of gaining a reader’s trust, they’ll come back to your site to buy when they’re ready.
3. Be original
Don’t be afraid to take a unique approach to a topic to craft original content. Maybe you do a roundup of industry quotes on a certain subject, or do an interview with an influencer, or create a series of infographics on some evergreen content.
Stand out from the crowd with your content and its format.
4. Optimize your blog
Of course you should spend time optimizing your blog post with the right keywords, a quality and click-worthy title, and meta description optimization so your content can rank on the search engines for the right terms.
SEO isn’t always the most fun or creative part of blogging, but it’s an extremely important one for business blogs and those wanting to make money from their efforts.
5. Link related blogs
Keep readers on your site by linking to similar content. This can improve the average time a user spends on your site, decrease your exit rate, and improve engagement among potential customers.
Most WordPress blogs have this function built in and will pull in recent blogs that are in the same category – so be sure to use categories and tags to help catalogue your content.
Did I miss any good blogging tips? Share yours in the comments below or on Twitter!
