5 Helpful Tips For A Successful Blog

Is your business blog helping you win customers and generate organic traffic?
Adding a blog to your website is always a great idea. No matter what its purpose is, whether it be business or personal, a blog can help search engines recognize your site while providing helpful content to your website visitors.
Studies have shown that small businesses with a blog can increase traffic to their website by 120%, and can also benefit from a significant bump in search engine optimization (SEO). With numbers like that the reasons for having a blog far outweigh any reasons not to.
How can you be sure that your blog is successful?
 

• Know your audience

 
Who will be reading your content? Are they tech savvy or beginners? What information will your target audience be searching for? It is crucial to know and understand the answers to these questions. You will want to base your content around the technical level of expertise of your audience as well as their interests and the questions they may be asking.
Before setting out to tackle your blogging task, make a game plan that identifies exactly what the purpose of your content is. This way you can create interesting, informative and shareable content for your readers. After you have determined this you will be on your way to blog success.
 

• Keep content short, sweet and to the point

 
Most readers are not looking for an essay on your specific topic. They are generally just looking for quick answers, and normally don’t need much else.
By keeping your content short and sweet you can ensure that your readers will maintain interest until the end. While there isn’t a general rule to the length of blog posts, we recommend anywhere between 400-600 words is ideal. If your posts need to be longer, consider separating them out into a series instead.
 

• Focus on keywords

 
Not everyone in the content industry loves keywords, but the simple truth is that keywords help web crawlers find your content and are an important factor in searching for information. This does not mean that you should stuff relevant keywords into content. Instead, plan your posts around topics that include these keywords.
If you aren’t sure which keywords you should target, take a look at others in your industry for helpful hints. Google Adwords can also provide popular keywords with graphs and charts relevant to the searchability of the keywords you are considering. Once you have determined the keywords you plan to target you can create helpful content based around information directly relevant to these words.
 

• Engage with your audience

 
One of the most rewarding aspects to keeping a blog is the chance to interact with your readers. By including a comment functionality within your blog you will have the opportunity to hear first hand what readers are thinking and feeling about your posts.
Social media also provides an excellent platform for your content to be shared while allowing you to interact one-on-one with your site visitors. Platforms such as  Twitter and Facebook also allow your readers to stay up to date with your future content and any exciting announcements you may have.
 

• Keep writing!

 
There is one aspect of blogging that is absolutely certain, and that is that there is no such thing as too much interesting and educational content. The more the better! So during busy times when you can’t imagine finding the time to add more content, write it anyway. Even just a short post explaining your absence is better than nothing at all.
Readership grows with consistency, so try not to miss your regularly scheduled blog post for any reason. Once you have discovered a pattern that works for you, the traffic will soon follow. Not every post you write will become a viral sensation, but there will be times when something you write does, and as long as it is consistently relevant it is doing its job!

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