You’ve finally taken the leap and started your own blog or website – now comes the difficult part. You may have a brilliant idea, but the next phase of your plan has to involve a killer marketing plan. This can be an extremely daunting task if you haven’t had experience in this field before, so here are a few tips to get you started:
What is the demographic of readers you are targeting?
There are so many different companies, businesses and blogs out there so if you want to distinguish yourself you need to find your niche. You need to tap into that select group of the online world that will be interested in the particular brand you are selling, or story that you are telling through your blog. Ask yourselves the following questions:
- 1) Who would get the most use/benefit out of the goods/services you are providing?
- 2) Who would be looking for opinions on the issues that you are blogging about?
For example, if your blog is aimed at selling kids furniture, you are clearly going to want to reach out to the community who are interested in all things baby & kids. This could include parents, teachers, educators or all other everyday people or professionals who engage with children or children-related issues on a regular basis. This already gives you a number of ideas of what you can be blogging about – it can range from children’s health, to children’s style to decor in a child’s bedroom. This is the case whether you are a parent blogger, health & fitness writer or your website centres around being environmentally friendly. Regardless, you need to find your particular audience and make your decisions based on what will reach out to that part of the online community.
Feature as a guest blogger on other people’s websites/blogs!
One great way to expand your parameters is to post on other people’s blogs as a guest blogger, which will possibly result in a wider readership, or reaching out to a slightly different group. However, this does not mean to say you should post on any blog that agrees to have your article. Do careful research, ensuring that you are posting on a site that is in someway relevant to yours, so that their readers are likely to be interested in your content, and follow up with a visit to your blog. You also want to make sure that they have a substantial following. As you grow your blog and prestige, you can start to move up the ladder and post on websites with greater popularity.
Don’t underestimate the power of a great picture!
Making sure you have a profile picture where you look amazing seems like a simple thing to do – and it is! However, don’t underestimate how important this can be when it comes to networking with bloggers and readers online. Without having met you face-to-face at this point, all they have to go on are your words and the picture of your face on the screen in front of them.
A picture says a thousand words, and your profile picture definitely contributes to the first impression that the person interacting with you through a screen will get.
Maximize social media’s potential
You can’t possibly run a successful blog without making the most of social media channels! Make sure you are using as many mediums as possible – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etcetera.
Invest time in making sure each of your business’ social media channels represents your business/blog the way you want it to be seen by others. It’s all about the image you want to put forward. You may also want to consider using different social media channels in different ways to use their style to your advantage. For example, your LinkedIn should be all about your qualifications or career background so that people know why they should be reading your blogs on particular topics. Twitter is great for connecting with particular people (especially influential people with a substantial following). If they are tweeting about something that might be relevant to your site, capitalize on it and make a connection!
Search Engine Optimisation
If you haven’t had any prior experience with SEO, you might want to get started. If not you will soon be losing out to other bloggers engaging in SEO techniques. One thing you can do is to conduct keyword research, so that you know can know what users of google have been looking up lately. If you start using those words in headlines, or within the body of your blog posts, you will become more popular with search engines. It’s just as important to look good to the engines as it is to the readers.
Remember, although blogging can be a lot about the creative side of things, it should also be informative and there are a lot of ways to use techniques to promote your posts. If you’re smart about it, your blog can be a must-read hit in no time.
