You may be at a crossroads with your blog and thinking “is this is even worth my time to write, worth the time an employee to write, or even worth the money I pay someone else to write for it.”  I assure you that it is worth it on many standpoints – from generating more content to your site, building a personality to your business, and promoting special services and products.  So how about giving it a new and exciting perspective with some more tools and additions?  Today we’ll look at some more interesting things you can do with this part of your site to increase readability and traffic.

  1. Make sure you have analytics set up correctly on your blog like the rest of your website.  Often times there are site mechanics where these analytics could be separate or non-existent on the blog side.  Ensuring you can track traffic here can show you what is bringing people in and could encourage similar topics to be written.  Blogs tend to generate long-tailed keywords vs. many short that are often sought after on the main website.
  2. Use similar topics on your blog to eventually repurpose into something greater.  If you have 20 blogs at 300 words each about gardening during Winter, you could very easily have a freemium or ebook dedicated to that topic.
  3. Have titles that are more engaging and make the content worth while for a user to read.  Tell them things like “You Won’t Want to Miss” , “Why you…” “How you…” and lists! (Much like the list included in this title).
  4. Social integration is basically key for your blog now.  If you have a quick access button for posting the blog someone is reading on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN immediately, then the exposure of your blog could become exponential almost immediately.
  5. Social bookmarking is great too.  Throwing a blog on Reddit or StumbleUpon could have your blog going viral within hours without you having to put in that much effort afterwards.
  6. Embed images on your blog!  When you share via social and other networks, websites often take the featured picture from your blog and post it first.  This can greatly increase clickthrough.
  7. Embed videos on your blog as well.  A combination of images, videos, and other engaging elements will make your blog interactive and likely more interesting to more visitors.
  8. Don’t forget to use the same SEO tactics on your website for your blog.  Blogs can benefit from H tags, meta information, and solid internal linking just like any other page on your website.
  9. Get the discussion going with an effective discussion board for your blog.  We like using Disqus for this situation because of its ability to go beyond your site into social media easily.
  10. In the same topic, participate in the conversation that starts on your blog!  If people find that the owner of the blog is consistently responding and engaging in reader comments, then people will be more likely to ask questions and talk with participants.
  11. A blog is an extension of your personality!  Feel free to put it in your e-mail signature, have a big call to action for it one your website, and possibly even add it to your business cards.
  12. Use tags and categories to properly organize your blog.  It’ll be easier for visitors to look through other content you have written about and navigate topics that interest them.
  13. Promote your blog on other blogs, but don’t be really obvious about it.  Participate in other conversations, talk to other blog owners in your industry, and once you have a good rapport plan and how you can feature one another.

Remember, blogs are not only pretty awesome but they are important.  If you have any other questions about how you can improve your blog, feel free to contact our experts at Market My Market!