1-Make it personal
People want to read stories, not long essays or white papers. Blogging is a way to build a connection with your audience especially when using simple words like ‘you’ and ‘I’. Introduce a personal story to help engage your readers or something that is relatable to them.
2-Ask questions
If your blog asks questions of the readers, chances are someone will respond by commenting. This is what you want – engagement. By the way, don’t be afraid of constructive criticism from your audience. Everyone has a viewpoint and an opinion. Respond to all comments with respect and a professional tone. Your readers will feel more connected to you and your message.
3-You need a community
If you upload a blog to your website and expect the world to go read it, think again. Here’s where you need to put some time and energy. By building a solid social media following, you’ll create a better opportunity for your blog to be shared. Essentially, this is your main distribution channel. Build your Facebook and Twitter followers. Create videos and upload them to YouTube. Reach out to other blogging sites to see if you may become a guest blogger and offer to reciprocate. Turn your blog posts into podcasts that can be listened to while on the road. There are several available methods for reaching your audience. Try to use as many as you can. There is another platform called Klusster which is a fabulous tool for bloggers to create their own publications or joining forces with other bloggers to create a community publication. Check out this one on health which is made up of a community of local businesses sharing content related to health.
4-Stand out
There are over a billion blogs on the web vying for your attention, so you need to make yourself stand out. Make it visually interesting. I don’t know about you, but if I see a blog post that is almost all text and no images, I am not as inclined to read it through. Break up your text with infographics and other visuals. It will make your blog more enticing to read.
5-Choose a specific niche
It’s impossible to be all things to everyone and do it effectively. So, don’t do it. Pick a niche that isn’t too small either or you’ll have a hard time growing your traffic or have fewer people interested in reading your content. Use Google Trends to home in on a niche. This will show you on a graph the interest trends on a particular topic. Here’s an example of a site blogging on the current popular niche of tiny home living. The topic isn’t so small that the writers would run out of content anytime soon but it’s still specific enough to target interested readers.
Conclusion
If you don’t take the above key elements into consideration when blogging, you may find yourself floundering. These are just as important as planning your content. Once you’re ready to begin writing, here is an article that might help you get things started and organized. What else have I missed here? What did you find to be critical to your blogging success? Let me know by commenting.
