A blog is one of the most valuable parts of a website. According to a recent report by Hubspot; businesses that focus on their blogs are 13 times more likely to see a higher ROI. Starting a blog and subsequently garnering an initial following of a hundred or thousand visitors per day can be really hard.
It all starts with a strategy that focuses on putting your audience first. You need to build a content marketing strategy that will grow your audience faster and make sure your reader keeps coming back.
Simpalm has garnered an impressive repertoire in the field. Here are a few lessons that we learned along the way. Therefore, if you’re looking for a reliable strategy to market and grow your blog but don’t know where to begin, this article is for you!
Layout and Navigation
In the day and age of the Smartphone, it is imperative to have a mobile-friendly website. According to a recent Statista report, more than half of the internet search now takes place on mobile devices. Your blog content, text, images, and other elements must be adjustable according to screen size. It is also one of the top-ranking factors for search engines.
Website layout and navigation must be crystal clear, so much so that your audience can comprehend your topic at first glance. Make sure that your content, navigation bar, and general features of your website are relatable and work together. Otherwise, your reader would lose interest and jump to a more engaging blog.
Additionally, to improve navigation, one can put a visible search box. It is the easiest way for the audience to find the content they want.
Create quality content
Creating good quality content is a critical factor of success in this domain. Sharing engaging content so that your audience not only sticks to it but also keeps coming back for more, help build out your brand. Quality content not only helps build brand perception, increase traffic, generate leads but also greatly facilitates creating brand awareness. To engage a reader, your blog must be fresh, unique, innovative, and interesting. Here are a few tips for creating engaging content:
Firstly, understand what your target audience likes to read. For this, carry out an extensive competitor analysis. Find what are the most engaging posts and keywords on their blog. There is an assortment of tools, like Google analytics, Search console, Ahrefs and Moz you can utilize to figure out what’s working for your competitor.
Don’t stick to only one type of content; instead create a variety like tutorials, listicles, case studies, video reviews, interviews, how-to posts, etc. Try all and find what works best for you.
Keep your content crisp, fresh, and original. Google does not rank duplicate content and you can even be penalized.
Maintain a proper heading structure. Readers are attracted by the heading and title of a blog.
Allow users to interact and comment on the post to receive valuable feedback from them. It will also add value to your content and improve ranking.
Improve user engagement
To improve user engagement, your content should be engaging and easy to read. Draft content that is clear and easy to understand. Content should be well formatted. Use proper titles, heading tags, bullet points, and short paragraphs to keep the audience hooked. It will keep your readers engaged regardless of length. Some tips that I’ve found helpful to build up user engagement are:
Split large texts into short paragraphs. Readers don’t like unwanted and lengthy text.
Use properly formatted title and headings by dividing your subsection into subheadings so readers can easily understand.
Use lists and visuals to improve user engagement, which will make your content engaging.
You can highlight key points using bold text or underlining them.
Provide a sharing button to make it easy for readers to share it on social media.
Add a call to action button in your post to increase leads.
Optimize blogs for search engine
Search engine optimization is the most dependable way to boost organic traffic for your blog or website. Optimizing your blog for Google will make your site easily discoverable while searching for relevant keywords. A properly optimized blog will rank top on search engines and build a strong brand value. Here are some useful tips to optimize your blog:
Optimize your Meta title and description: When search engines read a blog, they check the Meta title and description first. The title and description must be unique. You should add your targeted keywords at the beginning of the title and description. The page title should be between 60 to 70 characters, and for Meta description, it should be between 150 to 160 characters. You can also utilize SEO plugins like Yoast SEO to better optimize your blog post for search engines.
Content formatting: A blog must be properly formatted. Employ proper heading hierarchy in your posts, so that it’s easier for Google to index them. Typically, h1 is used for the main heading and then h2, h3… for subheadings.
Each blog must have only one h1 tag. Subheadings are the best place to add target or LSI keywords in your content. You can also use bold and underline to highlight the important part of the blog.
Image optimization: Well designed and relevant images are imperative for a good presentation of your blog. Use unique images or if you are using an existing image from the web, don’t forget to give a reference. One must also optimize the size of the image and alt tag along with a descriptive file name to describe the image.
URL optimization: URL optimization is essential to maximize SEO. A permalink aka slug is a customizable URL that you can use for your blog. Keep the slug short and don’t forget to put your main keywords.
Internal links: You can build your own web by doing proper internal linking. It appraises the search engine about new blog posts and also the most important blogs on your website. However, don’t go overboard, add links only where necessary.
Blog submission: Submitting blogs to different content curation sites like scoop.it, triberr.com, blogengage.com can help pivot your brand. By creating guest posts one gets a backlink for the blog, which is a critical ranking factor according to Google.
Improve website speed
No one wants a sluggish website, neither search engines nor your visitors. Google has several times stated that page speed is one of the primary signals in its search algorithm. Try evaluating your website performance using tools like Page speed insight, GTmetrix, Uptrends, and Pingdom. These tools audit your website and generate suggestions on the elements that must be improved, like speed, image size, or if there’s an error in JavaScript or CSS.
- Still facing issues after doing it all?
- Might be a problem with your server.
Social media promotions
Social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the best platforms to showcase your work and build out your brand. Generating relevant traffic and leads is the main goal for marketing your blog, and through social media, you can share your work with a vast audience. More importantly, it is cost-effective and productive if you employ the right marketing strategy.
Moreover, every business has its social media pages, but not all of them succeed. Thus you need an effective marketing strategy to grow your blog. Here are a few steps to market your blog on social media which we think could be helpful,
- Identify your targeted audience
- Choose an ideal social media platform
- Build a strong social media profile
- Keyword research
- Share valuable content
- Audience engagement
- Try Social media influencers
- Try paid advertising.
Author Bio
Piyush Jain is the founder and CEO of Simpalm, a mobile app development company in Chicago. Piyush founded Simpalm in 2009 and has grown it to be a leading mobile and web Development Company in the DMV area. With a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and a strong background in technology and entrepreneurship, he understands how to solve problems using technology. Under his leadership, Simpalm has delivered 300+ mobile apps and web solutions to clients in startups, enterprises and the federal sector.
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