How to do blog marketing like a pro: Tips, tools and resources

By John Ndar

Do you run a personal or corporate blog?

Whichever the case, you will likely agree that things have never been sweeter. At the mere touch of a button, one has the whole world listening and begging for more. Indeed, for many, it’s a dream come true. Yet, here comes the million- dollar- question: How can you do blog marketing like a real professional with great results?  Here are tips, tools and resources that have helped millions to succeed.

Easy tips, tools and resources

From the outset, it’s vital to recognise the fact that blog marketing, revolutionary as it is, depends on many factors to be successful. These include promotional issues, the type of design you wish to use, the content you wish to market and the technical elements that you wish to incorporate.

Whether you’ve been around with it for some time or you’re only just setting up, it’s important to recognise that one only needs to make some relatively small changes here and there in order to vastly improve the blog content and make it work wonderfully. Here are some pointers:

Choose your passion as the niche: What will your blog be all about? Do you have a passion, something that you really enjoy doing? Then that should be your niche, the point of discussion. Just go ahead and write about what you know best; the readers will simply be enthralled.

Establish a regular schedule: Ensure that once you start, your blog will remain active, with regular posts published on a reliable schedule. Readers love it like that.

Develop a workable marketing strategy: Once you know your audience, decide what your goals for the blog are, and how you want it to stand out from the competition.

Make the blog authoritative: Set up an “About Us” page. Tell the readers just what makes you the qualified expert to commentate on the subject or why you’re the industry authority.

Establish an editorial policy: Ask yourself: What kind of content do I want to use; do we want to incorporate employee matters in this blog; will we share case studies in the blog; can the writers meet to share facts or will we allow opinion blogging; will we strictly discuss items of news or do we want to link up with sources? These questions will help you to decide the right policy. Remember, your goal should be to serve your niche readers.

Introduce a popular posts segment: In the blog, lead the readers to related posts containing similar content of their interest.

Consult other successful blogs: You will learn from them and enrich your reader’s experiences.

Back up blog contents: You don’t want to lose all your work in case of server or other technical mishaps. Employ a back-up measure for your blog.

Establish a commenting policy: The policy should be honourable. This means it should aim to constructively engage the readers and allow for a healthy dose of criticism.

Aim to inspire readers: As a blogger, it’s important to learn just how a simple blog post can inspire other content material. Use this knowledge to be a pillar of inspiration.

Use music: Decide whether you want to allow music to play continually on the blog every time someone visits. Recognise that it’s a delicate act. Some users may find this to be annoying, even distracting, therefore you need to use discretion.

Author’s bio: It’s important to use the author’s bio and headshot on each blog post. Go ahead and exploit available hi-tech tools to achieve this.

Manage content spam: Every successful blogger ensures that he gets to monitor the conversations in the blog in order to control and fight the spam nuisance.

Customise the errors page: It’s equally important for the blogger to ensure he properly customises the 404 errors (where the webpage the reader is trying to reach cannot not be found on the server). Once this is done, the visitors in the blog are helped to deal with default issues that may occasionally hinder their navigation.

User experience: Many successful bloggers always ensure that they design a workable user experience in order to enhance the functionality of the blog.
Set the intended voice and tone of the blog: Ask yourself: what kind of writing style do I employ? In case I have a pool of writers, will I give them full latitude and allow independent opinion or do I have to limit it?

Search boxes and formatting: Make sure the search boxes are clear and visible on the page and that everything, including post results is clearly formatted.

Quick tips for successful blog writing

Superb planning: Every writer understands that good planning is essential to make an impact. The same principle applies with equal force to blog posting. To keep the readers captivated, plan well for the contents. Draw inspiration from your own personal experiences to offer solutions to the readers on the challenges in your niche.

Writing the headlines: Make the captions and headlines captivating. Use appropriate keywords to achieve this.

Simplify your content: Employ the use of short sentences, short paragraphs, and tools like bullet-points in your content. This makes it easily digestible and pleasurable to the readers.

Use numbers and adjectives: A blogger should use these when creating his headlines. This aids in grabbing the reader’s attention. Consider, for instance, “5 Simple Steps to Prepare for Your Wedding Day”.

Rally the readers into action: Why not use the ‘call to action’ words to good effect? Example: ‘Try this’, ‘Download’, ‘Upload’, and ‘Experiment’. This keeps the readers engaged and stimulated.

Employ the use of images: The use of images supports the written content in a great way. Therefore, use such image-editing tools like Photoshop to enhance the blog. Additionally, use other effects like arrows, circles and boxes to illustrate the blog content.

Professional editing: Before publishing your posts, carefully proofread the blog content for any grammar, spelling or other errors. If at all possible, employ the services of a professional proof-reader or copy editor. This makes the blog pretty honourable.

Readers’ feedback: What else do the readers want in your blog? Get their feedback. The easiest way to do this is to carry out a short survey or poll in the blog.

Utilise SEOs: The search engine optimised technical element is a great way to win traffic for the blog. Therefore choose a unique keyword that you can use discreetly in the content to your advantage.

Supplement the blog: Draw on exceptional advice from industry experts or other blogs. This enriches your own blog by giving it a unique outside perspective.
Design back-up plans for your blog: This helps your blog to stay on track. Every time the blog is in “waiting-mode” ensure that you plug in short titbits or comments to keep your readers engaged.

Introduce a guest column: A guest column incorporating an expert in the niche enriches your content and tells the readers that by visiting the blog they can benefit in a multiplicity of ways.

To conclude, in this digital age, blog marketing is now the big issue. In many ways, it represents the future of world business. If you are into it, why not use the tips, tools and resources to the advantage of your chosen niche? (Compiled from Internet sources)