Is your blog traffic growing slower than you want, or not at all?
Everyone says you should spend as much time promoting your posts as you do writing them. But sometimes you just don’t have time. So, what else can you do?
Here are 10 obvious ways to increase your readership that you might not be doing.
Blogging isn’t hard, but blogging on a regular basis can be.
This is why it’s critical to create a blogging strategy that works for you.
According to the recent Content Marketing Institute’s survey, 46% of marketers have a documented strategy for managing content as a business asset, and there’s no question about it that you should have one too! Having a blogging strategy saves time, helps you create better content and you’ll feel like you’re not always in a mad dash to publish a post.
While the blogging process is personal and many bloggers have a different approach, we want to share one that’s working for us. It’s a systemized approach to creating content – you break the blogging process into 5 steps and do each step for all your posts together.
So, here is the practical guide to creating a blogging strategy that actually works.
I have a confession to make.
When Chris and I founded Spokal in the summer of 2012, I didn’t know what “content marketing” was.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
I’ve always been a fan of permission based marketing, which is the heart of inbound strategies.
But the power of content marketing was a wonderful surprise.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve been amazed at how fast the content landscape has evolved, and how much I’ve had to learn not only to get up to speed, but to really understand where we’re headed.
We are creating, consuming and sharing an unprecedented amount of content.
That’s no surprise.
But if we look at the global trends, we start to realize we haven’t even crossed the start line yet.
What’s the purpose of content?
While marketers love “creating great content” that’s “high quality” and “relevant,” that’s not the goal.
The goal is to attract customers.
And keep them.
This is what you need in a customer worthy content marketing strategy.
I started off thinking I was going to write about “The Top 10 Resources For Content Marketing.”
Then I stopped.
Partially because that post has been written 87 times.
And partially because while I’m a fan of reading, content marketing concepts are simple and well documented. It’s not the lack of knowledge that makes it’s hard, it’s the execution.
So, instead of reading about content marketing, this is what I’d do.
I love events.
I’m one of those people that thrives on the energy of a crowd.
I love meeting strangers. I love the awkward pauses. And I love the “great unknown” of what can happen when we all get together to talk shop.
In fact, the only thing I don’t like about events are the cheap coffee and small name tags (no matter how often I spell “Alexandra,” the “ndra” always gets squished together so it looks like one letter).
So, when Chris and I started Spokal over 2 years ago, I went to a ton of events.
They were great.
There was only one problem – our company wasn’t growing as fast as we wanted. When we started looking at how much time we were spending at events, and what we were actually doing there, the ball dropped.
I realized I was drinking the event Kool-Aid.
To rock a networking event, and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by the sweet temptation, you need to do these 4 essential things.
We couldn’t emphasis enough how much we love blogging.
And how much it’s allowed us to grow Spokal.
So when people ask us if they should start blogging, I’m at a crossroad.
“Of course!”
Is what my content marketing brain says.
And
“You’ve got to be crazy!”
Is what my small business hat says.
There’s no doubt that content marketing builds million dollar businesses. And there’s no doubt that blogging is one of the best ways to create content that converts on a regular basis.
But, blogging isn’t easy.
Here are the 5 things that you don’t want to hear about blogging.
I saw 3 customer worthy examples of micro-content in the real world last week.
One from a local Victoria company.
One from a national company.
And one from one of the biggest brands in the world.
They all surprised me because they were exactly what micro should be.
Numbers don’t lie.
Right?
There are countless ways for creating the anatomy of a perfect blog post.
This is one of them.
According to science and numbers.
You can fill a room with 5,000 manikins.
And you won’t sell a thing.
That’s the problem.
Even if you follow a solid blogging strategy, promote your content on a regular basis and capture leads via email campaigns, how do you make sure you’re attracting people who are actually likely to become your customer?
Attracting qualified leads is crucial to getting customers online – here are the 3 essential ingredients you need to make that happen while blogging.
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