In my opinion, blogs are one of the best ways to generate a lot of attention about yourself online. In fact, if you had to pick between a blog and a website, I’d pick a blog because they provide search engine optimization and search engine marketing benefits while keeping the content fresh and compelling for readers.
If you have a blog, your goal is to keep people on it for as long as possible (so that they become convinced of your expertise and your ability to solve their problems). In fact, on metric I have pay attention to on some of my blogs is the "time on site" metric available through Google Analytics. The longer people spend, the better.
Here are 8 things you should do to improve your blog to encourage people to find your blog and remain on it:
1. Make sure that your categories and tags are listed where people can browse them. They should appear in your posts but also in the sidebar. This way, people who look at your list of topics can easily see that a variety of topics apply to them and they can choose to view the categories or blogs with specific tags.
2. Link to previous blogs. Sometimes you might want to use a "previous posts" list at the end of your blog posts or you might want to simply link to posts in the text. Whatever works for you. Again, the purpose here to get people to read other blogs you’ve written. There is also some SEO benefit, too.
3. Engage your audience with multi-media. Bring in pictures, video, and audio wherever possible. I do that a bit on this blog but there are other visual aspects to this blog that help to keep it engaging. But lots of blogs are pretty plain (and that’s okay) but should still have a nice mix of multi-sensory engagement.
4. Put your bio at the bottom of every blog. It helps with SEO and if people just read a single blog they’ll get a sense of who you are.
5. Encourage comments. Invite them. Read them. Reply to them.
6. Connect your blog to Twitter and to some other social media as appropriate (i.e., LinkedIn and Facebook and others). In general, if you can get the blog posted at those places, do so.
7. If you’re running a website and a blog, add links to both in your signature line. If you label them appropriately ("Visit my website" and "Read my blog") the right people will go to the right sites.
8. Create a variety of posts. Don’t just write all opinion. Don’t just write all advice. Don’t just review stuff. Do a mix. Add in case studies. Talk about your weekend. Whatever. Create an engaging site and share a piece of yourself.
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These are all great tips to building a more successful blog. Thanks.