Though newer solutions like social media are rapidly gaining popularity as ways to connect with your target audience, it’s important not to underestimate the potential of a great blog. Content marketing through your blog is still one of the most effective ways to drive organic traffic to your company and improve your authority online.

With the right blog, you can keep your customers informed about what’s happening in your organisation and encourage conversations among your clients. Additionally, blogging also gives you power from an SEO perspective, by helping you to rank for the right keywords and phrases.
The question today isn’t “if” you should blog, but how you can make sure that you’re getting the most out of your blogging strategy.

1. Figure Out How to Monetize your Blog

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to blogging is that they launch their content plan before they’ve thought of ways to make money off their website. Although it’s fine to have a website that you simply use to share your ideas with other people, you’d be much better off spending your time and money on a strategy that’s going to earn you cash in the long term.

Look at what your top competitors are doing to earn money in their niche and use their actions as inspiration to launch your own strategy. The quicker you begin putting strategies in place to make money online, the better.

2. Write Longform Content

In the past, the best thing you could do when you wanted to generate cash for your blog, was to simply produce as many keyword-rich articles as possible. Around 500 words were all you needed to get the attention of the search engines. However, today, you’re not going to get far with a bunch of short blog posts.

If you really want to capture the attention of the Google algorithms and impress your audience at the same time, then you need to stick with articles over the 2,000-word mark. You can produce articles less frequently if you’re happy to spend some extra time on making every piece stand out.

3. Establish Your Authority

Trust is critical to success in the online world today. If you can’t convince your customers that they can trust you, then you won’t be able to convince them to buy from you either. Make sure that you use your blog to build your credibility wherever you can. A good way to do this is to show your expertise by linking back to statistics or conducting interviews with professionals or influencers.

Remember to stick by your morals too. Don’t advocate for products that you don’t genuinely think are good, and never promote a product for the sake of making money alone.

4. Connect with Influencers

Speaking of authority, if you’re struggling to show your customers that you’re credible on your own, then you can always try piggybacking off the trust that other people in your industry have already build. Connecting with influencers and top bloggers in your space is a great way to boost your traffic and generate more attention for your company. Remember, the key to success with influencers is choosing someone relevant who already has a connection with the audience you’re trying to reach. Also, remember that you need to offer your influencer something valuable to convince them to speak out on your behalf.

5. Create an Email List

An email list is one of the most important tools in your content marketing strategy. One of the benefits of writing a regular blog is that it allows you to nurture potential leads into sales. However, it’s hard to do this if you can’t keep track of the people who might want to become customers for your brand. Make sure that you set up a great landing page and start gathering people for your email list with the promise of instant updates from your blog.

You can even build your email list before you start your blog with a lead magnet like a free eBook download, or a discount code.

6. Find and Fix Website Problems

If you struggle to enhance your SEO ranking even when you’re publishing great content on a regular basis, the problem could be with your website. Check your site is performing as it should. You can use tools like the speed checker from Google to find out how quickly your pages are loading. Additionally, it’s worth making sure that your links work properly and send people to the right pages. Once you find issues, fix them as quickly as possible.

7. Write for People, Not Search Engines

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when they launch their own blog is thinking that they need to tailor all their content to the search engines. While it is important to keep SEO in mind while you write, you also need to ensure that you’re writing for people too.
Writing for people will help you to attract the attention of loyal fans who will happily keep coming back to your website and sharing your posts on social media. The attention of your loyal fans will also improve your SEO in the long-term.

8. Have a Social Media Presence

Social media is crucial in the modern marketplace. Whether you choose to activate your profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or even Instagram, it’s important to make sure that you have at least some kind of social presence. Remember to include sharing buttons and quotation options on your blogs too, so you can encourage readers to share snippets of your posts on their profiles and drive more traffic your way.

9. Automate What You Can

Automating your blog doesn’t necessarily mean creating posts with robots. Instead, it could mean hiring someone to write your content for you and using tools to automate your social sharing strategies so that you always post new updates at the same time every week. The more your blog starts to generate money, the more you can invest into automating the process of keeping it updated and fresh.

10. Produce Quality Content

Finally, you’ll never accomplish anything with your blog unless you focus on writing the content that your customers want to see. Find out what kind of questions your customers are asking, and what they’re looking for from brands like you when they come to your website. You can even host polls and questionnaires on social media that give your fans an opportunity to vote for what they want to read about next.