An effective blog can drive torrents of traffic to your main website. People love to read blogs because blogs have an informal, conversational style. A blog is a powerful tool for building brand awareness and boosting sales.
A blog is a fantastic marketing tool. Whether your goal is to establish yourself as an expert in your field or you want to promote your business to boost sales, a blog can help you.
The best part is that you don’t need to be a techie to start and run a blog.
There are many different blogging platforms available including WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Typepad, Quora and many more.
Not only are these blogging platforms easy to use but also contain a lot of help and support material which can turn you into an ace blogger if you devote enough time regularly.
Use this guide to start blogging to grow your business.
Blogging Stats and Demographics
Here are some facts (as of October, 2014) that make blogging worth trying.
- A stunning 77% online users read blogs
- The US is home to more than 31 million bloggers
- Over 6.7 million people blog through different blogging sites
- Companies with a blog have 97% more inbound links than others
- About 67% bloggers are reported to have more than one blog
Blogging Best Practices
Starting up and running a blog is simple but it takes plenty of planning and effort to foster a community of followers for your blog. The tips that follow will send you on the track to success.
- First of all, understand your audience because it gives you a better idea of what blog content to publish.
- Share content relevant to your niche or business. Keep your followers engaged by sharing content that amuses them and helps them solve their problems.
- Follow an editorial calendar. It will simplify content production besides keeping you organized.
- Have a list of topics for blog posts. Also, decide on the type of content to share. You must decide what works best for your audience: text, images, audio, video or all of these.
- Conversational writing style is considered appropriate for a blog. Such writing style helps you establish a rapport with your prospects and customers because it makes them believe that a “real person” is behind the wall of words who will listen to any issues they might have.
- Connect your blog with your main website. Also, don’t forget to connect it to your social media profiles so that users can share your content.
- Allow your readers to know you. Interact with them. Respond to their comments. Build a rapport with them.
- Always have a spare post for publishing with you. You will find it very handy when life calls for it.
- Promote your products or services through your blog. Provide enough information about your product or service on your blog to help prospects and customers know your product better.
- Blogs are great for making new announcements and rolling out exclusive promotions.
- Above all, do not expect overnight results because that’s not going to happen. Blogging takes time and effort. Be consistent in your approach and you will surely be successful.
Let’s discuss
Which of these blogging tips are you going to start using right away? Let us know in the comments. By the way, we would love to know your secret blogging tips, and we’re waiting for them.
