Tom Pick
Image credit: GreenPal
You’ve put extensive effort into your business blog design, content strategy, research, and execution. Now—how you attract and retain a large audience?
The short answer is to write great content and then promote it effectively. Simple—but not easy.
The longer answer(s) are presented below. Why isn’t your blog attracting a higher level of traffic? How often should you post? How can you generate more organic search traffic? Email? Social media? Industry influencers?
Find guidance on those topics and more here in a baker’s dozen of the best guides to growing your blog audience from the past year or so.
Business Blogging: Five Reasons You Have No Readers by Spin Sucks
Got a well-written business blog, but a shortage of readers? Guest author Eleanor Pierce shares “a few ideas … some possibilities you may want to investigate” to address the issue, such as “You haven’t developed a point-of-view…it’s simple advice. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ But it also means you have to put some work into developing your own niche, your own point-of-view, and your own voice. Don’t think corporate blogs are immune from this advice. You still need to have a perspective.”
105 Tips To Make Your Blog Rock by jeffbullas.com
Jeff Bullas shows you how to find your audience, help your audience find you, craft enticing headlines, “secrets” on how to use social media to spread your content, how to become a thought leader in your field and more in these 100+ helpful tips and tactics. Among them: “In the meta tags for your photos, make sure the labels/words are what you want them to be – search engines can’t “read” photos, only the labels/meta tags.”
Survey of 1000+ Bloggers: How to Be in the Top 5% by Orbit Media Studios
Andy Crestodina reports on findings from the Department of Blogger Labor Survey, which asked 11 questions of more than 1,000 bloggers. Among the results: 37% of bloggers spend, on average, 1-2 hours writing each post. But nearly half—46%—spend on average 2 hours or more. 5% of bloggers spend more than 6 hours, on average, on each post they write. Half write during business hours. And while less than 5% publish daily or more than once per day, 28% publish multiple posts each week.
10 Tactics to Improve Blog Readership by Xpressly
Ruth Zive showcases an infographic with tips on how to “engage your audience, build your credibility, enhance your search ranking and drive meaningful business results” with a business blog, such as mentioning, quoting and referencing industry influencers, “but not the big ones; go after mid-level and niche influencers” as they are more likely to notice, appreciate, and amplify your efforts.
29 Free Ways to Promote Your Business Blog by Zude PR Blog
David Sawyer promises several takeaways from this post featuring more than two dozen helpful blog promotion tips, including “a step-by-step business blog amplification process,”all you need to know on the places you need to go—social media, communities, groups, blogging platforms, influencers—to boost your next article and get thousands of visits,” and “nine medium-to-long term tips on things you can do to get more people reading your content.” Among his insights, this regarding LinkedIn groups: “You don’t have to go overboard. But unless you’re sharing and commenting, few people are going to take time out to read your latest blog post.”
How to Get More Traffic and Traction by Promoting Your Content Like a Boss by Boost Blog Traffic
Andy Crestodina (again) observes that some bloggers “get way more shares than you. They get tons more email subscribers than you. They get much higher search rankings than you. And it sucks, right?” Unless you are getting Mashable-level traffic, you know the feeling. Fortunately, he then reveals “what promotion-smart know that most bloggers miss”—that search, social and email need to be integrated and coordinated (i.e., use the WPO framework); how to use your blog as the ultimate networking tool; and “always be collaborating” among other tips.
400 Blog Posts Later – What Works and What Doesn’t by Inspire to Thrive
Lisa Buben shares “16 things that have worked well and what hasn’t worked so well” across here first 400 blog posts, including her tips for Twitter (her #2 traffic source after Google search), Triberr (“a great way to reach other bloggers and share their stuff and for them to share yours too. If you haven’t signed up for this yet please do. You will notice a difference but not immediately. Give it time”) and Bing search (with a link to how Bing differs from Google’s webmaster tools).
34 Ways To Increase Your Blogs Email Subscribers List…..Number 32 Is SUPER Important! by Niche Hacks
Yes, the style (and even the blog title) scream “spam!” but once you get past the inevitable annoying pop-up ad, there is actually some very solid guidance in this detailed post. I won’t give away #32, but #12, for example, is: “Make your opt-in boxes stick out like a sore thumb…Making opt in boxes stand out by using different colours or shake can boost conversion rates—forget design it’s all about email sign ups.”
9 Potent Tactics to Promote Your Blog Posts [Infographic] by Social Media Writing
Mitt Ray showcases an infographic that summarizes blog promotion guidance from experts like Larry Kim (“Respond quickly to trends: it’s easier to get bloggers and journalists to write or share information conttaining an interesting new angle on something that was was already at the top of their mind [sic]”), Brian Dean, Rae Hoffman, Elisa Gabbert, Ian Cleary, Ann Smarty, Cendrine Marrouat, and Peg Fitzpatrick.
4 Key Steps the Pros Use to Get Traffic from Search Engines by jeffbullas.com
Guest author Jason Chesters details four key strategies for generating more search traffic to your blog, such as starting with keyword research after you write (“remember this rule: Great content first, keyword research second! Once you have completed your article, make a note of the subject and the main topic. Now this will immediately give you a basis for your keywords”) and the seven key attributes for on-page optimization of each post.
100+ Bite-Sized Tips To Get You More Social Shares (And Traffic) by Blogging Wizard
Noting that social shares not only increase direct traffic but also provide other benefits such as increased search visibility, Adam Connell passes along more than 100 useful tips to generate more engagement from Twitter (“@mention any individual or company that you have included in your content”), Google+ (“Add a share button to your blog rather than a +1 button”), Pinterest, Facebook, and other social networks.
7 simple ways to optimise a blog post for the search engines by Fairy Blog Mother
For those who’d like their blog content to rank better in search but can’t justify the expense of hiring professional SEO talent, the smart and delightful Alice Elliott outlines seven “simple procedures that can be put in place that will make a big difference” in search visibility, like optimizing images and meta tags (she explains how), as well as keeping text links limited and highly relevant.
9 Effective Ways To Revive A Struggling Blog by Blogging Wizard
If your blog growth has stagnated and you’re feeling frustrated, check out these nine tips for reviving a struggling blog from Marc Andre. Among his tactics: survey your current readers and subscribers “to make sure that you are covering topics that your readers care about,” analyze your results “to determine if there are types of posts that you should eliminate due to a lack of reader interest,” and adjust your posting frequency.
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