In the digital age of marketing, writing content for blog posts goes beyond penning thoughts into words. There are several points in blogging that should be in mind when optimizing a blog post to ensure wider reach and more visibility. Precisely why blog optimization is one of the key tools that marketers use today to improve traffic on their website.
Did you know that Hubspot suggested, marketers and online business owners who prioritized blogging are more likely to earn on their investment than the others?
It is true.
Although SEO strategies keep on evolving, blogging has always been a crucial part of the content marketing process. A successful blog can drive immense traffic to your website and also improve your SEO rankings.
But not all blogs are successful. While some garner huge readership and help grow the business, others find themselves looming in the shadows all alone. Essentially, these lonesome blogs do not follow a curated content marketing strategy. No one visits these blogs so how can you expect them to generate traffic and sales for your website?
This does not mean you need to kill your blog. If you want to improve traffic to your website but do not know where to begin, there are some strategies that can help you.
Before getting into blog practices, let’s take a cue from what makes a blog successful.
Informative
Successful blogs are those that provide valuable information to the readers. Give them what they want. Share information about the topics related to your niche that they are interested and invested in. Through your pieces, educate and engage with them. If readers find it interesting, they will like and share.
Clear Objectives
You must have a clear purpose before writing your blog post. Define clear objectives for the results you wish to have. This way you will have a clear direction and will not waste your time and other resources in a misguided attempt to get attention to your website.
Quality Content
In a competitive digital marketing landscape, building influential content marketing programs is essential. This content will help you build trust, improve conversions, generate leads, and engage with customers. All of this is possible only if the content provides value. It is better to publish 1000 words of quality content than 3000 words of bad content.
Scheduled Regularity
A couple of blog posts is not enough to help improve traffic on your website. Blogging works well when it is created and published regularly. Consistency is key when it comes to blogs. Draft a schedule and stick to it.
Here are some blog practices that you must implement to scale up your business:
Write Creative Headlines and Optimize the Blog Length
Everyone seems to create viral content. Do you know why most people fail? That is because they do not monitor what successful sites are doing everyday. If they did, they would know that there are a couple of secret ingredients that go into creating a viral blog post.
First is writing great headlines. This is actually not a new concept. Headlines have been used to grab the audience’s eye since decades. When writing a blog post, you need to hit the hammer on the emotions of the readers like greed, envy, and fear. Play with these and make your titles accordingly. If done right, click baits like these can help you attract a lot of new customers to your website.
It is understandable if you feel little hesitant using click baits because of their infamous status. Do not worry! You are not swindling anyone to put their hand in a snake’s mouth.
Second is to understand the length of your blog. Blog posts are generally over 1000 words. The longer ones range between 2500 to 3000 words. The longer the post, the more opportunities you have to improve SEO. That is where most marketers go wrong. In order to optimize their blog, they forget that their main aim is to provide quality to the customers. Today, people have shorter attention spans than ever. You cannot expect a reader to read a 3000-word post and feel enticed to purchase your product. You must find a balance between the right number of words and the attention span of the user.
Use Relevant Keywords
Search Engine Optimization is one of the most essential tools to grow your business. Content marketing and SEO go hand in hand. And as you may already know that there is no SEO without keyword research. So, before starting your blog, do keyword research (if you are a beginner, you may use Google Adwords) and make a list of the keywords that you can include in your blog. Also, when doing keyword research, keep an eye on the competition and search volume. This will help you strategize your content better.
Once you’ve decided to target a couple of relevant keywords, use them in your write-up effectively. Try and place them where they will have the most impact on the readers as well as search engine crawlers. Chances are you’ll invariably use the keywords in your post without any conscious effort if your topic of choice resonates with the keywords you’ve researched.
Give What Your Audience Wants
Most marketers fail to realize that what you want to write and what your user wants to read may not always be the same. Holistically, you are providing a service to your user with a blog post. So, focus on what they want and need rather than what you can give.
In other words, forget what you want to serve or what you are best at. To increase sales, give your user the solution they need. No one wants to read you boasting about how good your product or brand is. You must write for your audience. Explore and research your target audience. Serve them with their problems and how you can help them find a solution to their troubles.
Optimize Your Blog Post With Accurate Metas & Blog Tags
Ranking on Google or other search engines can drastically improve traffic and sales on your website. Certain tactics such as writing accurate meta titles and meta descriptions can not just help you rank better on the search engine but also provide more value to your customer before even having them on your website.
Meta descriptions are very important as they appear on the search results. While often overlooked, they can help you get more attention to your website without any hassles. Essentially they have to be accurate, precise, and solution-based. This way the user will know exactly what they will get once they click on your link.
Blog tags and categories are also very effective in providing a better experience to your readers. It helps them find the topic and niche they’re searching for easily. Think of these tags as content themes throughout your blog topics and website. Each tag relates to a variety of topics and keywords that you have posted. For this reason, assign no more than three to four tags to a single post.
Implement Effective Internal & External Linking
Whenever appropriate, add internal and external links in your blog post. Adding both these links throughout your post is one of the most effective blogging practices that a marketer must implement. Basically, when you mention a fact, another article, or blogger in your post, include a link for the reader’s reference. Not only is this good blogging etiquette, but if you are lucky you may also get a link back. Quality link network is a valuable commodity for any website looking to improve traffic and search rankings.
Page Speed & URL Structure
To rank higher on Google and other search engines, your website must be fast. Search engines love speed. Facts suggest that a site that loads faster will beat the site that does in SERPs. One way to improve your page speed is by opting for good hosting. Choose the best available according to your budget.
One of the common mistakes that a rookie marketer does is to use bloated images in order to improve page speed. Instead, make sure your images are appropriately sized and are optimized to load quickly.
Google and most other search engines have an eye for detail. They take notice of your URLs so keep them short and easy to read. Also, make sure that they include the keyword.
Final Words
Blogs are one of the most effective tools at a brand’s disposal to improve sales and traffic. Creating and marketing quality content consistently and regularly will help your website rank higher and get more attention. Blogging has a wide array of benefits. It impresses your prospects with your unrivaled expertise. It does not merely function as brand awareness or trust-building campaign but to directly generate organic leads and improve sales and conversions.
These blogging practices are proven ways to get more visitors to your website thereby increasing leads and sales. So, create quality content, build backlink profiles, implement on-page SEO, add images, and most importantly refurbish and optimize these blogs regularly. Google algorithm evolves constantly but the basics remain the same. Write quality content that your readers need and there is no way your blog won’t achieve success.