My colleague Jessica and I had the pleasure of leading a breakout session on Strategies for Effective Blogging during Hartford Business Journal’s e-Marketing and Technology Summit last week. Here are five key takeaways from the presentation:
- Create a strategy – outlining objectives, tactics and benchmarks will identify how a blog can support larger business goals and generate a return on investment.
- Be consistent – we’ve all seen a blog or two that start off with a bang and drop of the radar after a few months. Publish posts a minimum of once each week to keep readers coming back for more. Keeping a couple of draft posts on evergreen topics in the queue can help maintain consistency when you can’t find time to blog.
- Optimize your blog posts – embedding keywords in your blog posts can enhance search engine optimization. For optimal benefit, include keywords in the title, first paragraph and closing paragraph of your post. Be strategic and selective when choosing keywords to include.
- Link it up – inbound links are a great way to generate traffic for your blog. How do you generate inbound links? Start by commenting on high traffic blogs relevant to your industry. In addition, seek opportunities to guest post on other industry blogs.
- Encourage sharing – make it easy for people to share your content with their online communities. Installing widgets for readers to share posts through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and via email will help attract new readers to your blog.
The next time you are crafting a blog post, consider these five strategies for increasing search value, growing readership and building community.
