Business Blogging Review, What Makes an Effective Blog Post?
Wondering how to maximize the effectiveness of your business blog content? Read on for some quick tips that will help you get the most out of your time and business blogging efforts. Or, dowload our FREE Business Blogger’s Bible now for a more in-depth review.
What are the elements of an effective blog post?
Let’s analyze it from the outside-in. In other words, what determines blogging success? In order to measure effectiveness we need to define goals. On some level each and every business blog post you write should have a goal. Small or large, this is the first step – know what you are trying to achieve with your content!
Determine Your Goals
The much overlooked and oh so important first step! To determine goals on a post by post basis you need to take a step back from the big picture of your business blog site as a whole and focus on a much smaller level. With each article you release what are you trying to achieve through your message or technique?
- Exposure/Traffic
- Search Engine Optimization
- Leads/Sales
- Public Relations/Branding
- Building Trust and Authority
- A Combination or all?
How will the type of content and your blogging technique help you to achieve your goals? Let’s take a look:
Optimize
This is typically #1 on everybody’s list – how can I optimize my content for favorable search engine results? While there are never any guarantees with search, there are a few things you can always do to ensure you follow best practices:
- Avoid Generic Blog Post Titles (get specific!)
- Keyword Rich Content
- Use of Relevant Active Link Text
- Use of Internal Links (related posts)
- Proper Tagging of Photos and Links
- Use of Call to Action Links
- Proper Use of Categories
- Proper Use of Tags
Want more detail? Take a look at this post on Best Blogging Practices or request our FREE Business Blogger’s Bible.
Add Value
Ironically, adding value is often the last thing on a business blogger’s mind. SEO often takes the marquee position but people, once you get someone to your article from a search engine what is going to entice them to connect with you? Value!! The value your article provides is imperative. How do you determine value? Well that’s another blog post but do a little brainstorming about what your target audience wants, help them to solve problems! Don’t overlook this very important piece of the puzzle.
Link Funnels
Links are helpful for three things: gathering leads, building value and search engine optimization. On some level, you need all three.
- If you are looking to get leads make sure you are using call to action links. What can you offer that will entice visitors to sign up – squeeze pages, forms on your website, enticing offers to gather emails, e-news or blog news sign-ups, free online tools? what do you have that people want – provide high visibility links to those things!
- Internal links to related blog posts are great for search engine optimization, always think about linking to a few of your own blog articles so search engines crawl deeper into your site. This gives you a better opportunity to get indexed for such topics.
- As mentioned above, building value is an important focus for the reader. Always weigh the cost/benefit of offering a link to a third party resource (as this is a potential avenue to lose readers), however – offering links to valued resources can make you look like a star! TIP: have third party links open up in a new browser window! This ensures your blog stay open in the background while the reader checks out your link.
Good User Interface
Is your post well organized, to the point and visually pleasing? Have you offered any visuals to help break up all the text? It’s pretty easy to make a mess of a blog post, spend some time making it look pretty so you don’t lose people at first glance.
Push
Are you getting the most bang for your content buck? These days it’s pretty easy to connect your blogs to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for an automatic push. Blogging also goes well with email campaigns. Looking for more comments or feedback on your articles? Email them to your sphere of influence, ask for these things! Just make sure you are providing that all important value so your clients are benefiting from helping you out!
Blogging is a fantastic marketing tool, but it will always take a bit of discipline to maximize your content in this medium! Don’t have a business blog yet? We can help! Please contact us today for more information about business blogging, social media and content creation.
Contributed by Kristen Belschnerkristen@kineticknowledge.com
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Comments
What great information! It is always refreshing to read post by people who are in the know. thanks!