Businesses often assume that marketing their less-than-mediocre blog is better than not marketing a blog at all. Yes, it’s best to do something, rather than doing nothing. However, I would have to wholeheartedly disagree.
When you market a blog that is in bad shape and lacks a clear purpose, it’s a poor reflection on your business.
A poorly made blog makes for a bad business image. Before marketing your blog, make sure it’s ready for the spotlight by following these 7 steps:
Step 1: Write down your blog’s purpose:
Marketing a blog that lacks a clear purpose is a huge waste of your time and energy. When you’re not clear on the purpose, it’s nearly impossible to gain even a minuscule number of followers. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of this blog? Where do I want it to fall in the sales process? For whom is this blog?
Step 2: Outline your blog’s target audience:
Understanding your target audience is essential before you begin blog marketing. If you’re marketing to the wrong audience, you can be sure that you won’t receive any positive results from your tireless efforts. Ask yourself the following questions: What does my target audience do for a living? Where do they live? What are their hobbies? Where do they dine? Where do they go to get their news? Once you’re clear on who your target audience is, you can direct your content to those specific people. This ensures that your readers will feel more connected to your brand and your content.
Step 3: Implement effective blog design techniques:
Your blog design should be in line with your brand image. Design includes a handful of elements such as colors, images, and layout. When deciding on images and colors to use in your blog design, ask yourself the following questions: What feelings do I want the design to evoke in readers? What colors accurately portray my brand?
When it comes to the layout, ask yourself, what action do I want my readers to take? For example, if you want your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, be sure to put a newsletter sign-up box at the top of your sidebar in an obvious location with a proper call to action.
Step 4: Organize sidebars and interior pages:
Your sidebar(s) and interior pages provide interactive tools for your visitors to use in order to connect with you on social media, subscribe to your RSS feed, find additional resources, and learn about your brand.
Some essential elements to utilize on your sidebar include blogroll, links to your social media profiles, RSS feed subscription button, newsletter sign-up, YouTube videos, categories, popular posts, and more.
When deciding what interior pages to create on your blog, keep in mind the purpose and target market of your blog. Interior pages could be About This Blog, Meet the Team, Contact Us, Portfolio, Samples, Services, and more.
Step 5: Create an editorial calendar:
Avoid hasty blogging, topic searching, and poor optimizing by creating an editorial calendar in advance. Choose the days and times you want to publish your posts, and stick to this schedule. Create an editorial calendar with a list of detailed topics around these planned days and times. When deciding on post topics, be sure to keep your blog purpose and target audience in mind at all times.
Step 6: Have a month’s worth of posts published:
To avoid wasting your time promoting a blog that isn’t properly developed, it’s wise to have at least a month’s worth of posts published. This way, when you start to promote your blog, visitors will have some valuable posts to read through and be more willing to take the action you want them to take—whether that action is to leave a comment, sign up for your newsletter, call your company, or send you an email.
Step 7: Develop effective calls to action:
At the end of every single post, there should be a call to action encouraging readers to take some form of action—without sounding salesy. In your calls to action, you can ask readers questions and ask that they respond, suggest readers subscribe to your RSS feed, recommend that readers connect with you on Twitter for instant updates, or suggest that readers sign up for your newsletter. The possibilities are endless.
If you like this post, you might also like:
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