There are several key points to consider when blogging:
- Write about something you care about and is important to you. Share your ideas and thoughts. Try not to just re-share what others have written.
- It’s good to see what your competition is writing about but in the end, only YOU know what questions your customers or clients have. What would you say is the most important thing you could convey to a potential customer about your services?
- Be genuine. Write in your own voice.
- Don’t feel like you’ve got to memorize the Oxford Dictionary when writing a blog post. We have found that writing in a conversational tone is just as effective as a professionally sounding article. In fact, depending on your services, sometimes a more informal blog post will catch a readers attention.
- Create a schedule and stick to it
- Easier said than done right?! Sometime you think, “Oh I have time this afternoon and I’ll write four blog posts and catch up. That way I won’t have to write more later”. Sure, if this works for you. But more often than not you’ll find that if you get out of a “writing rhythm” it can be harder for you to be creative. Create a schedule that works for your time table and spend a good quality chunk of time to write and then come back and re-read.
- Interact with your readers. Reply back to comments and questions.
- Many of our clients do not have comments enabled on their blogs, and for a reason. Sometimes keeping up with a conversation online can be time-consuming and tricky if other readers take off on a topic unrelated to what you’re trying to convey. What is another way to interact with your readers? Send your blog posts out through email! Any replies you get back or conversations sparked can be used for a follow-up Q&A for another blog post.
- Build your community. Make it easy for your readers to follow you on other social channels (Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook).
- Having a method of Social Sharing on your site is vital. Most of the time on websites you’ll see a string of icons at the bottom of each blog post to allow folks to share. This is the most intuitive way for social sharing as it is a common practice on many websites.
Read more about Blogging in the infographic below!
