Nowadays, social media sites have captivated all attention. They are used for entertainment, business development, and information transfer. Business owners meticulously choose their content strategy. The right content strategy highly depends on the content formats. Blog, video, podcast, and social media stories are just a few of many that may confuse any marketer.
In this situation, you may ask whether businesses should invest to have an updated blog. Today’s trends and statistics show that blogging is still a beneficial component of effective marketing strategy and a popular source of information for readers. Yes, people still read written content online. They might not spend time covering from the start to finish but often search for a step-by-step guide or short instructions on credible a blog.
The overwhelming majority of respondents in recent polls indicate reading blogs. Companies who blog get twice the links to their website than those who don’t. These numbers show how effective blogging can be for a business today. Although the frequency of publishing blog posts has declined from a few per week to a few per month for more than 60% of bloggers, blogs remain among the top 5 sources of information.
Why reading a written blog is still popular?
It seems that the main question is not whether people read blogs but how they read them and why. Answering these questions will help businesses to develop an updated blogging strategy. An effective way to persuade readers to frequent your blog is to provide informative, entertaining, or educational content. Promoting your brand or product should be your second priority.
1- Gaining knowledge for the blog
Google is the number one online resource for people to learn something new every day. Whether it is through written content or videos, most searches on Google seek to find how to do things. So, if your goal is to boost search traffic to your site, one effective way is to offer step-by-step guides, short instructional videos, tutorials, fact sheets, and infographics.
Of course, you will use each of these content types where it suits your purpose, but the overarching principle is to simplify complex topics for your readers. You can stimulate your readers’ curiosity by providing valuable information while promoting your brand, service, or product.
Comprehensive information about new technology, process, or trend in your industry attracts a significant number of readers who want to update their knowledge and learn how to apply the new tool. If exploring a new topic makes your post too long, you can break it into multiple relevant topics to discuss the topic from various angles.
2- Entertainment
Gaining knowledge is not the only reason readers search and scroll online. People also look for fun inspiring stories. The challenge is how to keep a business blog, professional and entertaining at the same time.
The key is creativity. You can still convey the information you tend your reader to gain through fun imagery, infographic, or photo post. You may, for instance, refer to funny memes used in advertising when blogging about successful marketing campaigns. Short video interviews or podcasts, as added layers of content, go well with written blogs if you feel the need to dive deeper into the topic.
3- Industrywide information
Talking about your product or service would be more interesting to readers if it is discussed in the context of the relevant industry. People are specifically intrigued by industry trends, statistics, and news. Posting updated content and industry-relevant breaking news help create a community of regular readers for your blog.
One way to engage more readers is to offer expert tips and data on how to benefit from the specific trends in the industry. Professionals in each industry would spend more time on a blog that provides them with educational information relevant to their industry.
So, if you are in the advertising industry, having a blog post about how to use features of an emerging social platform for marketing and advertising would be timely. If you continue to create such up-to-date content, your blog becomes a go-to place for information and education.
While writing an interesting blog is the goal, there are a few pitfalls that you would better have in mind. First is to avoid posting personal news on your professional blog. You want to establish a professional relationship with your clients and potential customers. So, it is better to stay professional.
The second danger is to post unnecessary and outdated content filled with powerful words for the sake of SEO. Being ranked high by search engines is a good thing but you don’t want to appear superficial. The last issue is to remember to promote your content in the right places.
What kind of blog performs best?
The hardest part is to create content that engages a wide spectrum of audiences while promoting your product and services at the same time. The first step is to make sure your target audience will see your blog posts when searching for specific content. That is the power of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. you can find some basic but helpful information about SEO itself and how Lyla can help your business with SEO on our blog.
The next step is to convince potential customers to click on the link and check your blog. The main point is to remember that readers click on a post if they feel they will find a solution to their problem. If they get disappointed after visiting your page, they will not return to your blog.
But how to rank high in search results to increase the chance of being seen by customers? We don’t want to get to the details of SEO here. However, there are a few effective strategies that everyone can implement when writing their content.
One important step is to include powerful words in the title and the content of the blog. Power words are basically the first strategy to make your content visible online and pull in your target audience. A good headline with correct power words will signal your readers to not look further because your post will be most likely to fulfill their needs and guide them to the information they need. Hence, they will click and visit your blog.
Motivate your readers with creative content
The more challenging part is to write content that engages readers with different motivations. One solution is to combine the main reasons people still read blogs (i.e., knowledge, entertainment, and industry information) as much as possible. We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to teach your readers something new about your industry every time you post a blog. How-to-dos and step-by-step instructions will be much more interesting for your readers because they learn a new skill after reading your blog.
When you are educating your readers about a new trend in the industry, giving them some facts, or teaching them some new skills, it is important to provide them with examples of how you have used or are planning to use this information in your marketing mix. You can then subtly introduce your products and services without seeming over-promotional.
Sometimes you write for industry leaders and company employees. That should not stop you from creating entertaining and informative content. You can include infographics, interesting images, videos, GIFs, and interactive components. Entertaining content helps your clients, customers, and readers to relate to your brand on a more human level.
Effective blog strategies
Credible blogs are most successful when cater to a wide range of readers by entertaining or informing them, raising their brand and product awareness, and teaching them something new. If you want to know more about effective tactics to increase your blog traffic, check out this post on How to Write Blog Posts That Convert Visitors into Customers?
An important principle in blogging is the long-term vision. Through your blog, you want to build a long-term relationship with your readers and clients. Therefore, the quality of your blog should be your top priority.
1- Know your target audience
Spend some time to know your target audience and build your blog based on their feedback. They are more likely to visit your site again if they find your blog topics aligned with their interest. The benefit of creating a conversation with your readers is that your approach to blogging evolves even if your audiences’ needs stay the same.
Designing your blog layout correctly is as important as having the right content for your readers. As we mentioned before, having a clear headline goes a long way in attracting readers. Your blog layout should be organized for easier access and the content should be scannable for a quick review. As a rule of thumb, your blog post should be easy to skim. Write in short and effective sentences and break long paragraphs.
Some bloggers suggest including a clickable table of contents, especially if you are writing a comprehensive post that gets too long. Readers would appreciate being able to navigate through your content and search for specific subjects and information. You can even make the table of contents moveable along the blog page to make navigation easier.
Using a readable font and high-quality images or graphics is also important. Remember that a creative design does not mean cluttered. Consider page load times when adding various components to your page.
2- Place suitable call-to-actions
Make your blog interactive by including a suitable call to action and by encouraging engagement. Readers would engage with interesting and unique content. Unique content cannot be created in a vacuum. You, as the writer, need to be engaged with as many as resources you can. Books, social media platforms, other industry blogs, and news outlets are a few to name. Then, you can translate the knowledge you gain into an interesting story from your point of view.
Like any normal conversation, your reader will engage further if they receive timely and genuine responses. If you receive comments or questions regarding your blog, the politest thing is to reply. This will leave your readers with a pleasant feeling that they are contributing to the discussion. Others may join and further the conversation and thus more audience will engage with the topic.
To make it easy for your readers to visit your blog again, make sure you include a subscription box somewhere on your page. You can collect emails to remind your list that your blog has been updated. That way, you can build a valuable relationship with your readers and eventually form a community of
3- Engage participants
Another way to create value for your readers is to guide them to extra resources. Do not be afraid of linking to other blogs, sites, or articles. You will generate loyal readers if they find your content informative and helpful. Your blog gains credibility if you refer to external sources, other studies, and additional data. Linking to other blogs will also connect you to other professionals in the industry which may come in handy in the future. Though it should not be your immediate purpose, having external links will help with your site’s SEO.
Being exhaustive when covering a topic is another practice that not only helps with your site’s SEO but also showcases the quality of your blog. Try to explore a topic from various angles and points of view. Comprehend different sides of the issue and transfer that knowledge to your site visitors.
The devil is in the details. If you are teaching your readers a new skill, make sure you go as deep as possible to help your readers understand the topic thoroughly. To make an informed decision about your next step in topic searching, you can always rely on your customers. Ask for their feedback on what they wish to see that was not covered in your blog. To can write a second part to your current blog or start new content once you get some ideas.
Final thoughts
Blogging is not irrelevant in today’s marketing strategy. People still read written content. However, customers’ way of using blogs has changed and bloggers need to adapt, or they will lose readers.
Writers need to be creative while keeping SEO principles in mind to create content that performs best. The most important point is to create content that informs and engages readers at the same time. Engage your readers with interesting tips to do new things and teach them new skills. Be mindful of your design and avoid cluttered pages.
Remember you can always contact our experts at Lyla Marketing for a free consultation.
