So, you have created your blog or have had one for a while, but you’re thinking of doing more. You now want your blog to start working for you and your business and not just the other way around.
After creating a good blog site and curating great content, it’s natural for you to want to ramp up your blog’s marketing strategy a bit. Your plan should be as airtight and as broad as possible and still remain focused enough to be effective.
But, before you can start digging into what you must possibly include in a strategy that touches base with every important section while recognizing its own priority areas that it leverages above others, perhaps a good place to begin is to ascertain the benefits of marketing your blog.
The Benefits of Marketing Your Blog
Source: experienceadvertising.com
Think of your blog as the face of your brand. If you think it’s some sort of diary where the CEO dumps their most recent thoughts, that it’s for lead generation; it isn’t a notice board for all your press releases either.
A blog is a shortcut for “web+log.” As suggested by the fuller form of its name, a blog is meant to serve as a record of all interests associated with your business. Your blog is at the top of your sales funnel and must create top-of-funnel traffic. This is where every big decision is birthed, so it’s a very crucial stage. But, keep in mind that your client is usually not securing decisions at this early stage. They’re likely still at the awareness stage.
What you want to do with your blog is to encourage clients further down your funnel to the consideration stage then finally to the decision stage. Every latter stage depends on how well-strategized the first stage is.
The Strategies
This brings us back to the big question: What marketing strategies can be used for blogs?
Blogs have been around for quite some time now, and a quick look at blogging statistics in 2021 will tell you what’s working and what’s not in the blogging world. Let’s look at what’s supposed to work marketing-wise for your blog.
There are a lot of things you can do to market your blog, but let’s keep it short and simple. Here are the things your marketing strategy should probably be giving priority to:
Study Your Competition
Create a list of about 10 of your leading competitors and look closely at their content. In it are cues of what’s working and not in your industry. What unique techniques have they implemented to leverage themselves, and how can you creatively apply these to your blog?
After you’ve assessed what you can learn from your competition, now is the time to read and learn from their blank spaces. You can be sure that even your strongest competitor will leave gaps. Identify and capitalize on these so that your blog can offer its visitors a unique and customized experience.
Conduct Keyword And SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Research
Your blog’s marketing strategy is supposed to be keyed to helping a customer find you on the Internet.
Do you know what clients searching for your product or service are typing into their search dialogue boxes? If you don’t yet, don’t worry, you can still get it done. Just look for a crash course on how to do SEO keyword research.
You’re looking to create a situation wherein if a customer searches for keywords that are associated with your brand, your blog pops up right at the top. So, you should do everything to leverage yourself above all competing blogs.
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Promote Your Blog
Source: icetruck.tv
You want your blog to be as discoverable as possible and your content to drive people to your blog.
There are inbound tactics you can use to help you market your blog. One of those is trying to market your blog through an influencer. If you choose this strategy, you should try and make sure that you choose influencers who are in your niche or industry. For the best effect, these should be people your target clients perceive to be credible, trustworthy, and influential.
Besides influencers, you’ll need to decide which other places you want to distribute your content to. Some bloggers limit their distribution to social media pages. Yes, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are amazing places to share links to your content but think about how you can do more than that.
Learn about other online publishing platforms such as Medium. Distributing your content with such a well-oiled machine can be a great compliment to all the other avenues you might decide on to promote your blog
Also Read: Keys To a Successful Professional Blog: For Application Development
Get the Best Out of Blogging
There are millions of bloggers out there. The content pool is not really a pool anymore, much closer to being a sea. The best bloggers and marketers know how to make their blogs work for them.
A blog that is doing its job will ensure that your prospective clients are made aware of the topics and conversations that interest your business. They should be able to perceive you as an authority on the subject, which, in the best cases, might lead them further down your sales funnel.
Remember, the blog is how most clients meet you for the first time on the Internet.
