7 Steps to a Successful Blog: Know How to Build Your Strategy
Starting a blog can be an incredible boon for your business, but you need to do this right in order to reap all the benefits this marketing tool has to offer. This means that you need to have a sound strategy in place before you get around to writing captivating posts. The following 7 steps will help you develop an effective marketing strategy for your blog:
- Identify your purpose
You need to understand why exactly you need this blog. Do you aim to strengthen the relationship with your customers, increase sales, boost your exposure? Answering this question will allow you to determine the focus of your strategy and come up with most efficient solutions.
- Identify your prospective customers
Who are the people you are trying to reach through your blog?
Develop a description of your ideal customer so that you can look for these people online and study their behaviour using various analytic tools. This way, you will know what to include in your blog to make it more appealing to this particular group.
- Learn from your competition
Check out the blogs of your main competitors as well as the industry leaders. Adopt their most successful methods and look for the gaps in their blogs. Filling these gaps will boost the interest toward your own page.
- Find your keywords
There are a variety of analytic tools that can be used to identify the keyword groups you will need to target with your posts. Keywords are essential for SEO, so it’s imperative to invest time, effort, and resources in this research. Do not forget that simply stuffing any post with these words may lower your ranking.
- Choose your distribution platforms
Filling your blog with quality posts is only half the job as you also need to ensure your targeted customers notice them. Social media networks are the best place for content promotion, but you also shouldn’t forget about press releases and email newsletters.
- Decide who, when, and how often
Choose the right person to run your blog and determine how often you can post new quality content. Updates must be frequent, regular, and consistent, so it may be best to employ a team charged with writing posts and uploading them to your website.
- Use the metrics
Identify which metrics you need most from your blog and ensure there are tools in place for collecting and processing this type of data. Use these numbers to see whether you can reach your short-term goals and adjust your strategy based on them.