Blogs drive traffic to your website, increase your SEO, develop better customer relationships, and position your brand as a reliable source. Chances are, you already have a company blog and understand the importance of creating branded content to increase your reach. But, not all traffic is good traffic.Even if you get hundreds of visitors to your blog every day, it doesn’t mean you’re getting a high volume of quality inbound leads.
To attract potential customers, make your blog as functional and relevant as possible by optimizing, writing for the right audience, and promoting your content.
Optimize
Research Keywords
If you’re creating valuable content, you are probably already including quality keywords in your blog posts. However, there’s still a chance your post is lacking words you haven’t considered. Using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool, you can find keywords that are close to your topic and you can take a look at what keywords your competitors are targeting.
Reminder: The purpose of your blog isn’t to get a mass amount of visitors, but to get the most relevant visitors.
Keywords should be relevant to your website’s content. If visitors often come to your site but aren’t happy with what they find or isn’t qualified to purchase your services or products, you won’t see a steady return on investment.
Use Keywords
Once you’ve concluded which keywords will attract the right visitors (potential customers), you should include them throughout your blog posts. Focus on the title, headings, intro, conclusion, and title tags and meta descriptions. However, don’t go off the deep end with keyword stuffing. No one wants to read a dense block of buzzwords and Google will penalize you for it. Including a few purposefully placed keywords is a better practice.
Interlink Your Blog Posts
Interlink means to join or connect two or more things together. To apply this to your blog, it means linking your new articles to your older, relevant articles. When choosing anchor text (the text that contains the link), considering using keywords you already rank for. It’s easier to improve rankings than rank for something completely new.
When placing the anchor text, placing the words closer to the top of your page above the fold to give it more pull. Also, make sure to only interlink the same page one time per article. Search engines only use the first instance of a link in their algorithm.
Reference Sources with Links
If you include stats, quotes, or information from other websites, you should link back to these sites. This is proper blogging etiquette and there’s always a chance they’ll link back. More importantly, it shows your article is reliable if you provide easy access to your sources.
Optimize Your Images
Images make blog posts more exciting. Blocks of text may have interesting content but if someone lands on a text-only post, he might be overwhelmed and quickly leave the page. Images tend to hold viewers’ attention longer so be sure to incorporate relevant images in your blog posts.
To use images to increase your SEO performance:
- Save the image on your computer with keyword descriptions
- cute_golden_retriever.jpg
- Name the Alt Text
- Another way to prove to search engines that your image is worth ranking
- Don’t use huge images
- Large images can slow load time, people will only wait a few seconds
Write for the Right Audience
Write for B2C
- Be trendy and involved in current events, they’re more socially driven
- Use short and edgy content to combat short attention spans
- Images and visuals are more important than text
- Use images that evoke emotion (humor, sad stories, awe)
- Keep the mood light. Don’t overwhelm consumers
- Be quick to release a story when it is relevant to attract the most people
- Post multiple times per day (or as frequently as possible)
Write for B2B
- Back up your points with stats and credible sources
- Make your content actionable (after reading your content, people should know what to do next)
- Include additional resources and guides like an eBook to download
- Try using infographics for data-rich posts
- Use emotion to spice up dry content
- Solve your customers’ problems (even if its not something directly related to your product)
- Get specific with content for more link backs
Promote
When promoting your blog, don’t just rely on one method. Be sure to branch out to multiple outlets to find your potential customers but get an idea of how they tend to spend their time. This could vary depending on if you’re writing B2B or B2C.
Social Media
After you create a post for your blog, instead of relying on one or two social networks to direct people to your blog, use multiple social networks to promote it like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram.
Some of these might seem like a stretch depending on the type of post you’re promoting, but when you get creative, all these networks can help you find the right audience.
Twitter is often the first network that comes to mind when promoting a blog. Right when the blog is posted, send out a tweet alerting your followers to check it out. Use hashtags relevant to your article so people searching for particular content will find your post!
Be sure to schedule multiple posts later in the week pointing back to the same blog post in case people missed your initial tweet. Experiment by using different wording to see which verbiage performs the best.
If you have enough extra characters, attach a relevant photo to stand out in peoples’ Twitter feeds. You can also tweet your blog post directly at prospects if it is relevant to something they’re talking about and would be helpful insight.
If you have a Facebook brand page that faces the same audience as your blog, share your blog post on your company timeline and be sure the featured image is captivating. Use hashtags in your text so people searching for particular content can find you.
This magazine-style network calls for an image optimized for maximum pinning. If you want to get your blog post shared on Pinterest, be sure to take time to create an effective Pinterest image instead of simply pinning your featured image.
If your company is writing for businesses, take advantage of LinkedIn. Post your blog post on your company page and any groups you belong to or manage. But beware, link dropping is looked down upon. Be sure to read the rules of the group and only post relevant links and contribute to conversations in a meaningful way. The main purpose of your content is to be helpful.
Google+
Post your blog link on your Google+ business page and share with your circles to increase your SEO and find prospects. You can also engage with relevant communities to reach people with certain interests and find audiences that would enjoy your content.
YouTube
You might be thinking, “How do I promote a text post with a video?” The answer? Create a teaser. Use video to take a piece of your blog post and share it in a short 30 second video. Then, attach the link to your full blog post.
Yet again, this network might not seem as applicable for promoting a blog post. However, you can post an Instagram-worthy feature photo that relates to your blog post or simply a text post alerting your followers of an update and include the link in your caption.
In addition to promoting on social media, give readers the option to subscribe to your blog. This way, they conveniently receive your blog posts right in their inbox when you post them.
The Wrap Up
Don’t just blog to blog. Find the right audience by optimizing your posts, writing for your customers, and promoting in the right places. By using these tactics, you’ll get conversions, qualified inbound leads, and sales.
