I get many clients asking whether they should be blogging – The short answer is YES! But does it work? What can you gain from it? How often should you blog? What do you write about? These are just some of the questions asked when the topic of blogging comes up. So let’s address them…
How often should you blog?
It’s not necessarily the quantity of posts you make, but the quality and consistency of your posts. Quality posts are informative and helpful to your users and customers, and lead to them being shared across the web, which creates back links to your website. Consistency is the key. You can write as often as you want – once per week or once per day, it’s not important, just make sure you stick with your posting schedule. After a while, Google and other search engines recognize your consistency, your new content, the back links, and your pages begin to rise in search results.
What should you write about?
This one should seem obvious – Write about what you do, or what you know best. And yes, you still will face writers block, that’s a problem for everyone, but we’re all an expert in what we do, or have exceptional knowledge of a particular subject. Share that knowledge and expertise. You might have friends, family or colleagues who call you for advice or your opinion on certain matters – This is your chance to take that and establish yourself as the expert online. You begin to build an online following of hundreds or thousands of people who want your advice and opinion.
Trick out your blog
If you’re using WordPress, which I suggest, here are some things you can do to maximize your SEO and help build your online audience:
- Facebook Comments – This will help spread your content across the social sphere. When someone comments on your blog post, it posts that on their Facebook wall, and their friends can see it, creating conversation about your article with their friends.
- Subscribers – Get users to subscribe to your blog so they can receive future blog posts. This keeps you in their mind as your posts are delivered to their email inbox when you make new posts.
- Automated Sitemaps – Make sure you have an automated sitemap which regenerates with each new post, and submits it to Google. This alerts Google and the search engines quickly that you have added a new post, it gets indexed quicker and the constant ping to Google lets them know you are an active blogger.
- All in One SEO Pack – This plugin lets you control the meta tags with each post – You can set a custom page title, custom page description and keywords.
- There are many other worthwhile plugins and addons you can integrate into your blog – Get in touch with us today to learn more.
Does blogging work?
Yes. Yes and yes. But only if you follow the rules and guidelines as I’ve mentioned above. Create a consistent schedule of quality blog posts, and write about what you know best. If you write poor blog posts and post on an irregular basis, it won’t work for you. You get what you put it. I have received business as a direct result of specific blog posts – I know first hand it works and makes me money.
Get in touch with us today and we can help you develop a strategy to attract a following and generate business.
