In the 2000s, blogging was an essential tool to be visible on the Internet. Many people rushed into this activity to make money with their passion. However, the rise of video platforms like YouTube have made blogging appear like an antique. That’s why many new bloggers wonder if blogging is still worth it. Is blogging dead? Did video kill the blogging star? This article will show you that blogging is not dead and is still an asset…providing you implement the right practices.
Why is blogging important?
Blogging is still an indispensable tool to increase the visibility of a company because it helps them to build their brand. Here are four reasons why a blog is important for your business.
A blog maintains your marketing strategy on track
In a highly competitive world, promoting your products or services can be difficult. Fortunately, blogging will help your company to rise above the fray. Your company will be automatically promoted with helpful and quality content for your target audience. In this context, blogging will you to build a relationship of trust with your audience at a low cost.
A blog attracts new clients to your business
Publishing quality content on your blog will help you to increase traffic to your company’s website. And an increased traffic means potential new clients for your business. You can increase traffic with SEO strategies such as keywords, meta titles and meta descriptions. Moreover, whenever you publish a new post on your website, the algorithm of search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!) will index your new content in their search results.
A blog builds your reputation in a specific field of interest
Blogging is an essential investment to build a solid reputation for your company. Moreover, blogging will improve the level of trust of your audience towards your company. The more you publish helpful content, the more you increase trust in your brand. That’s why you should encourage your audience to comment your posts and share your content.
A blog helps you to advertise your products and services
Over the years, research has shown that 80% of companies prefer to have an advertisement in the form of a series of articles instead of the traditional “buy now” call-to-action. Blogging is also a very creative way to present your products and services, as people flee from traditional ways to sell and advertise items.
Now that we have examined why blogging is important for your company, we’ll give some tips and best practices to adopt to have a successful blog.
7 Tips To Have a Successful Blog
As blogging is important for your business, you need to master some techniques to have a successful blog. Here are some tips to help you to get the most of your blog.
Tip #1: Choose a niche
Your blog niche is your area of expertise. It can be finance, real estate, travel, FinTech, law, marketing, fitness or music…Whatever the niche you choose, you have to be knowledgeable in your field and share helpful, quality content. Your audience will thank you.
Tip #2: Publish content regularly
Successful blogs have fresh and up to date content. One in five successful bloggers publish content at least weekly on their blog to keep it relevant. The only thing that matters with publishing content is consistency. The more consistent you are, the better rankings you get on Google. All you have to do it is defining a publishing routine and stick to it. However, it is worth noting that the bloggers who publish content daily have 128% more chances to get strong results.
The kind of content you publish is also very important. Don’t put random blog posts, hoping and praying they will please your audience. The current trends show that the most effective blog posts are how-to articles (77%), lists (57%), news and trends (47%), guides and e-books (43%) and opinions (43%).
Also, updating your old posts is a must-have strategy for successful bloggers. Indeed, those who update their old content regularly are twice more likely to get results. The update of your old blog posts will contribute to higher quality content, as well as a higher ranking on Google.
Tip #3: Pay attention to the details in your content
Getting a successful blog means that you need to be extra careful about details. Your blog posts need to be attractive to your audience. Here are some simple practices that you can implement:
Add visuals
Research has shown that the more visual your content, the more successful. 39% of bloggers who added 10 images in their content had better results in Google rankings. On the contrary, only 16% of bloggers had good results in Google rankings with one visual in their content. Visuals will keep your content interactive and interesting for your audience.
Write meaningful headlines
Headlines have a catalyzing role in attracting traffic to your website. That’s why it is recommended to have a maximum of headlines with specific keywords related to your blog post. An impactful headline will include numbers, a specific promise or a question.
Writing a successful headline is not easy and does not always come up as easily. Writing headline drafts will help you to pick the one who is the most likely to be successful with your audience. 46% of bloggers who wrote 11 to 19 draft headlines had better results in Google rankings than 22% of bloggers who only wrote 4 to 6 draft headlines.
Master SEO techniques
SEO techniques are dedicated to optimize to your content on search engines and to drive more traffic on your website. SEO will be especially useful for organic search. However, it is hard and requires some skills such as keyword research, meta tiles and descriptions.
You have to optimize your content with strategic keywords to get better rankings on Google. If need be, don’t hesitate to contact an SEO expert to help you.
Tip #4: Focus on several sources of traffic
Don’t rely solely on SEO to drive traffic on your website. The three most important sources of traffic for bloggers are search engines (67%), social media (63%) and email marketing (43%).
Considering the abovementioned statistics, you’ll have to implement some actions, such as:
Tip #5: Follow your performances
Following your performances will help you to be keep your blog relevant. Thanks to Google Analytics, you’ll be informed on which content and traffic sources are more or less successful for your website. It will also give you the opportunity to fix your mistakes or accentuate the excellent results that you have. Statistics have shown that 37% of bloggers who always checked their analytics had better results in Google rankings than those who did not.
Here are some metrics that you need to check:
Tip #6: Monetize your blog
Monetization is related to how you can make money from a blog. Many successful bloggers have succeeded in making money with their blogs and make a living from it. Here are some strategies you should implement to make money from a blog.
Include some ads in your content
You can make money with ads inserted in your content whenever a visitor clicks on them. You can use ads published by Google Adsense, Propellads, PopAds, Media.net, Amazon Native Shoppings Ads, or SHE Media, just to name a few ad platforms.
Become an affiliate marketer
Affiliation is one the quickest way to make money with a blog. With affiliation, you recommend products and services that you really like to your audience, just as you would do with friends and family. Whenever you publish new content, you just have to put the affiliate links and banners of your choice. If your visitors click on the links and buy the products, you end up with a fee. And you can earn a living with your blog if you manage to attract lots of visitors on your website each month.
Tip #7: Work with an editor
You may not have time to publish your content regularly yourself. You may not know all the SEO techniques to improve your Google rankings. In that case, why don’t you work with an editor? Research shows that 38% of bloggers who work with a team of editors had better results than those who edit their own work (22% of bloggers).
Blog Box offers blog content copywriting services to clients of various industries and sectors. Our agency has SEO specialists and content writers who can perform that work for you while you focus on other strategic tasks. For more information, don’t hesitate to contact us.
In a few words, blogging is not dead. It is still a valuable tool to promote your company, provided that you implement some strategies on your content, the tracking of your performances and the monetization of your blog. You can also work with a specialized editor such as Blog Box to get the most of your blog for your business.