Give Your Blog A Winning Leverage (Part 1)

Part 1: The Basics and Goal Setting

1. Who Are You After?

Analyze who your audience is. Understand who they are and why would they want to read your blog. Try to grasp their interests and objectives as to why they would be interested in you. Once you have this information, you can map out or update your blog’s content and appeal.

2. Getting Found

Once you’ve identified your target audience, your next goal is to communicate with them. You’re going to need to create visibility. But how?

Using keywords! Keywords are words and phrases in the content of your blog that search engines use when looking for results to display (you know, good ol’ search engine optimization). When your audience searches for something, they type in keywords on what they want to find. Your goal is to have these keywords within your blog so that you pop up in their search. The better the readability, content, and keyword usage you have, the better your chance at getting found.

Try BuzzSumo to help you generate traffic to your blog by giving you an idea of what topics are popular on different websites. It gives you data on the most searched and talked about topics on the Internet and analyzation of that content. It helps you target an audience by identifying what they are interested in. It’s a very powerful tool that companies like Yahoo and Expedia utilize.

And if you’re a local business looking to get found in your city, make sure you’re equipped with these local seo tips.

3. Engaging Your Audience and Keeping Them

Once you land them on your blog, your goal is to keep them on it. This is done by engaging them through the content of your blog. Is it relevant? Is this the kind of information they’re looking for? And are your writing chops up to par? You want to keep them interested and hungry for more, after all.

And don’t forget, you blog has got to be visually appealing. You’ll need top notch images and videos to make sure your readers get a full grasp of your concepts. No one wants to plow through 1000 words without anything visually pleasing to ease their eyes.

So, what next? Obviously, you’d like for them to keep coming back for more, whether that means continuing to view your content or have them become a client/customer of yours.

Having a sign up button or similar call-to-action option at the bottom of your blog can help you stay connected with them or potentially gain a new lead right on the spot.

Stay tuned next week as we go over some tips and tricks on improving your blog (once you’ve nailed the basics, of course).