Blogging is a very important tool for marketing any business today. It’s essentially providing information about a particular topic of interest based on the subject or niche of the website where the blog is located. The fact is, not only can blogging build a business, it can also become a business.
A good blog will help to build your business fast, especially if your business is an online business. Here are 5 simple ways you can improve your blog to create more momentum in your business.
FREE Download: 21 Days To A Better Blog
5 Simple Ways To Improve Your BlogÂ
1. Check Your Headlines
In a blog post, the headline is the first thing a visitor sees. It must be engaging enough to get that person to stay and read the rest of your post. What are the things your audience struggle with? Offer them real solutions. Think about frequently asked questions, skills they need in their niche, and more. Remember what it was like when you were first starting out, and give them the kind of content that you wish you’d had to help you. For example, here are two headlines:
- The Benefits of Meditation
- 7 Benefits of Meditation
Which one caught your attention? The second one of course. Numbers in a headline catch attention! There are some great tools that you can use to improve your blog headlines such as the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer  and the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer from the Advanced Marketing Institute.
2. Review Your Content
After the headline, next comes the content or body of your blog post. You can start improving blog content with your opening line. It should be 8 words or less and “hook” your visitor right away by creating the curiosity to read more.
The rest of the content should be easy to read. Break up text by using bulleted or numbered lists, subheadings, bolding, italics and images. Use transitions between paragraphs to bring the reader from one idea to the next. When you review your content remember ‘the 5 W’s’. Write about the Who, What, When, Where and Why of your topic. Finally, you can add in the How of any topic too and come up with a great blog post.
As you talk about new products, services, or other issues within your niche, you are also creating a voice for your company that will carry it forth to new customers. If you’re excited about a product, your audience will be too. If you’re serious about it, your audience will be too. It’s all in word choice.
3. Look At Your Visuals
One of the easiest things to improve your blog is a picture. The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is no truer than it is in blog posts. Content without images can be very boring on the eye so include at least one relevant image in each post. It gives the visitor to that page a quick and easy glance at what the content will be about. People are very visual, and if you use an eye-catching image on your blog, your readers are much more likely to share your post on social media.
If you’re using WordPress, use that same image also as a featured image for that post so it shows up in the recently published blog post listing. If you include a link in an image, does it take the visitor to the right place?
4. Check Your Statistics
While there are many different blog statistic programs, most continue to use Goggle Analytics because it works the best. The three things you should look for are:
- Traffic source:Â Where is it coming from?
- Bounce rate: The percentage of people that visit your site, but don’t dig deeper and end up leaving. A high bounce rate can indicate something is wrong in your blog causing them not to stay.
- Site overlay:Â For the people that choose to stay, where are they going in your blog? Or more important yet, where are they not going? If you are offering something, but nobody is taking you up on it, something isn’t right. You may have to change your message in these areas or the design of your blog layout.
By comparing these three analytics, you get a better idea of how people view your blog and how to improve your blog traffic. It could be entirely different from how you think people are viewing it or would like people to view it. Time for a change!
5. What’s Your Call-To-Action?
Without this piece of the puzzle, nothing goes anywhere. You need to be entrepreneurial from the outset if you’re going to create a money-making blog. When you are first beginning, chances are you won’t have any products of your own to sell, such as eBooks. In this case, become an affiliate marketer. This is where you sell products for other companies and earn a commission. You could start with all the top products you found at Amazon when you were doing your niche research. Write reviews, add links, and promote every post you publish, for traffic and sales.
If you want your visitor to go somewhere from your blog post, you must have a highly visible means of getting your visitor to go there. While a highlighted word that contains a link could accomplish that, a better call-to-action is a colorful button the tells them to do something like ‘Subscribe’, ‘Download‘ or ‘Get It Now’.  Make it simple but yet highly visible.
Free Checklist: Improve Your Blog in 21 Days
A blog is essentially a relationship-building tool. Your target market could find your blog through search engines or links, read it, and decide to see what your business has to offer. It could give them the push they need to become paying customers. When you know how to write an engaging blog it becomes a valuable asset to your online business. Download my free checklist, 21 Days To A Better Blog to discover 21 different one-a-day tasks to improve your blog.
