August 21, 2018
47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. What that means is that the blog is not a dead form of content, you just have to know how to do it right. It should include material for all stages of the funnel and engage your audience in a meaningful way.
There’s a lot of competition. The number of bloggers is expected to reach 31.7 million by the year 2020. WOW! So how do you get ahead of the game? Here are a few steps you can take to stand out from the crowd and avoid common pitfalls:
When search engine optimization was first established, people went a tad overboard. “Keyword stuffing” is when you write a blog with the intent of using as many keywords in the content as possible. People began posting blogs that consisted of gibberish just to get their brand on page 1. Once Google caught on, they changed their algorithm.
That’s when bloggers got scared and stopped using SEO altogether, which put them dead in the water and on page 20 of search engines. That’s because websites with a blog tend to have 434% more indexed pages, but with no SEO, Google doesn’t know you exist.
The idea is that it is a dance between quality content and SEO that really ranks your blog high up on Google. The search engines are smarter than you think, so trying to dupe them will not work. In fact, it may actually put you out of commission if you anger the Google gods enough.
The life of your blog is only beginning when you publish. If you are marketing in a way where you hit “publish” and cross your fingers, you’re doing it all wrong. The next step is to grab that link and sprinkle it all over your social media channels. Consider the fact that not everyone knows your blog exists, but they may be connected to your social pages.
You don’t always have to write in paragraph form. In fact, did you know that 36% of people prefer list-based headlines? It makes it easier to collect the data when it’s listed out. Consider making a few “Top 10…” listicles to add to your blog portfolio.
Another great idea is to create an infographic and blog around that. People love visual data and respond highly to it. If your blogs are all walls of text, your bounce rate will be super high. Blog articles with images get 94% more views. You want a mix of good media and good conversation.
You always want to make sure your blog has links to not only outside and reputable sources, but also internal links back to other blogs and web pages on your site. The idea is to weave an intricate web of networking around your blog so that people are continually drawn back to it.
Google prefers blogs that are 2,000 words+ but that’s only because the search engine really, really likes good links. As long as you back up your content with other quality sources, you’ll rank higher on Google every time. And when you backlink to your own pages, it keeps people on your site longer. It’s a win-win all around.
The list goes on when it comes to all the mistakes you can make with your blog. However, creating quality content and getting it out to the masses isn’t as difficult as it seems. If you remain authentic to your brand, create value for your readers, and speak from an honest perspective, you’ll gain followers faster than you can say “Go
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