Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
Are you on the blogging journey?
Are you striving to develop an audience and an income?
Well, you are not the only one. There are tens of millions of blogs competing for visitors online. To stand out you really do have to do things right.
But then you already are – aren’t you? Perhaps not.
If you think you’re doing everything right but your on-going results are disappointing then this article is for you. By the end of it you should have a better idea of what will lead to your success, and what will lead to blogging oblivion.
Propel Your Blog Foreword
Keep It Fresh
You should be writing consistently. Don’t worry too much about keywords, just keep writing good content. Your website should be revitalised on a regular basis with quality information that is interesting to your readers. This is the only way you will get people coming back again and again. SEO for blogs is all about dedication, and commitment, and not about manipulation and tricks.
Entertain People
Your content should be entertaining. It should engage your audience and be presented in a way that gets their adrenaline flowing. If you can’t write persuasively, humorously, expertly, or with passion then you are unlikely to develop an audience.
Get your titles concise. By all means use your keywords in your title, but only if it doesn’t make your post “toxic”. Overkill of keywords is a real turnoff.
Plan and Strategize
Plan and Strategize
Setting up a blog is so easy that many people jump right in. You must realise that a blog is like any other website. You should do long-term planning to ensure you understand the structure of your blog, how you want it to develop, and where your readers are going to come from.
Plan for your initial launch and the attention you are going to get. And then have a rollout strategy for the content ideas you have.
Answer these questions before you get going so you know which direction you are headed in.
Develop Unique, Compelling Content
The content to produce should be shareable. If no one is going to talk about your content in social media then it is unlikely it will be a success. Some bloggers spend a full day creating a single post. They understand the value in doing so. Naturally, when you start a blog, you are motivated to get as much content up as soon as possible. Ensure that you keep the contents to a high standard so that you can build a blog brand.
If it is worth writing about them don’t just write about it. Use quality eye-catching images. Write killer headlines that draw the attention of your readers. Ask questions that really do need answering.
Your content should include your keywords but they need to fit in naturally because you have to appeal to real people and using too high a keyword density turns readers off.
Learn to Write Attention Grabbing Headlines
Attention Grabbing
Research has shown that 14 or 15 word headlines have the best click-through rate. It may be difficult to fit 14 words into the 60 character search engine limit, but it can be done if you use short words and are careful. If you go over the limit then make sure that the punch in your headline is in the first 60 characters.
How To headlines work well, as do other styles that offer the reader clear benefits to your readers. Alliteration is a common newspaper headline writer’s trick that you can imitate. Having most of the words in your headline start with the same letter is a very powerful attention-grabbing technique.
Remember that sex sells. If you can make allusions to sex then your blog post will get more reads.
Security Sex Snobs Slammed over Strip Search Slip-Ups at Stansted Since 70s!
This is even better than the original alliterative headline because it maintains the alliteration and adds two “sex” words. It also increases the word count towards the magic 15 word target.
What Do You Want Your Visitors Searching?
Think about what you want your visitors to be researching in order to find your content. When you do this you will have a starting point for your keyword research. You can then jump onto the Google keyword planner tool, and other useful keyword generation idea tools in order to source the best keywords to use. If you’re going to spend your time writing high quality posts, then focus them on bigger keywords. Some search engine optimisation experts suggest that you focus on key words with more than 6000 monthly searches.
Talk About Authority Figures in the Industry
Matt Cutts
If you saw your name in the post, referred to as an expert in a topic, would you be happy?
Find out who the authorities are in your industry and write about them in your posts. You could quote from their website. You could explain best practice as they see it.
When you talk about authority figures you are more likely to get your content shared by them, and by other people in the industry. You will piggyback off their authority and in time increase your own authority as well.
Interview Authorities
Seeing as we are on the authority figure thread, don’t forget to consider doing interviews of authority figures in your industry. In some situations these may be celebrities and difficult to get hold of. Vanity of vanities, most people will do an interview if they know you have a readership.
These interviews can serve as features on your blog, and really will attract attention from the industry. You can even do a press release about the interview if it is of sufficient interest.
Share Authority Figure Content
It is suggested that you share your content less than you do that of authority figures. When you share meaningful content from significant people in the industry you will increase your following base massively. You may also get a tweet out or like from the authority you are talking about. This could be worth thousands of new readers.
Build Your Link Profile
Link Profile
You need to be consistently working on building back links. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should be asking other blogs for links, but you could be popping out a press release about new features to your website. You could be announcing a webinar and asking other blogs to tell their readership about it. By getting people pointing to your website you will dramatically increase the authority that it has in the search engines.
Ensure that your link profile is natural, and not targeted to just one or two keywords. Encourage links to all of your content through social media, and avoid black hat techniques. If you have high quality content then you should find it easy to drive links to your website.
Watch Your Statistics
You should definitely have Google analytics and Google Webmasters Tools accounts. These can provide incredible information about what people are searching to find your blog, and what they are doing when they get on to your blog. It is only by understanding the profile of your readers that you will be able to markets additional products to them, and build for the future.
Listen To Social Media
Social media means that we can listen to our potential visitors these days. By tapping into the chatter about the industry we blog about we can find out of the exact topics that people are interested in. We can even find out the terminology that people are using about different topics. This is a great way to get ideas for writing compelling content that is timely.
If no one is looking for the information that you are talking about then your readership will not increase. If you hit the mark in terms of current industry sentiment you could see a your readership increasing quickly.
Proofread Proofread Proofread
Proofread
The content you produce really must be top quality. If it falls short in terms of grammar, punctuation or factual accuracy you will damage your blog brand.
If you can, get the content you write into someone else’s hands to sanity check it. Get your facts right and quote sources where necessary. Make sure you have a process to check posts before they go live and begin circulating the webosphere because once they are live your mistakes will be there forever
Final Word
Building a meaningful blog these days is about developing quality focused content. Do things right and you will be a success. Concentrate not only on your blog but on your social media profiles. Look to become an influencer in the online space. Build it and they will come!
Nice round up Uttoran. I’m going to share a few tips that aren’t mentioned much in my next post – I’ve followed @guestcrew on Twitter so I’ll try give you a nudge to get your thoughts when it’s published.
– Stuart
Hey Stuart Davidson,
welcome to Guest Crew and thanks for your comments,
Glad you liked the list. Will keep an eye for you on Twitter,
thanks,
Uttoran Sen,
These 12 tips are great 🙂 Posting great quality content often is the way to get noticed. It’s about what people like and engage with. I always ask myself before posting: “Would I share this on my social media if I saw this somewhere else?”
If the answer is NO, I go back and try to make the content better and more engaging.
Thanks for sharing these tips. A lot of people will appreciate them 🙂