Blogging As a Career Aid: How to Publish Content That Boosts Your Job Prospects

Laura Cole

While it is often taken for granted that blogging is a progressively popular pastime, few of us understand exactly how purposeful it can be. So although a staggering 6.7 million individuals publish blogs on specialist websites and a further 12 million write posts and share these through their social networks, the motivation to blog is becoming increasingly diverse.

It has also evolved considerably over the course of the last decade, as while pioneering bloggers wrote about their passions and interests it quickly became renowned as a lucrative platform for generating income. While Google’s regular algorithm changes have subsequently reduced the potential for bloggers to make money, however, increasingly organic search listings and streamlined results have enabled individuals to use blogging as a way of furthering their job prospects.

3 ways to Blog while boosting your Career and Job Prospects

This is reflected by the changing demographic of bloggers, with those aged between 21 and 35 now accounting for more than 53.3% of the overall market. With this in mind, what practical steps can you take to develop your blog in a way to aids your career and long-term job prospects?

Establish yourself as a credible Industry Expert

In many respects, blogging provides a virtual platform from which you can showcase your unique industry knowledge and the benefit of your experience. By crafting informative and insightful content that discusses topical subject matter, it is possible to share both your knowledge of a specific market and the challenges facing affiliated firms. This understanding is highly sought after by employers, especially in complex or technical industries that continue to evolve at pace.

In practical terms, you should approach managing your blog in the same way as you would oversee a commercial website. It is crucial to prioritize the regular publication of high quality and insightful content, for example, while also ensuring that your posts include organically placed and industry relevant keywords. This will help your blog to rank highly in relation to specific phrases, meaning that it will feature alongside established industry firms and enhance your profile among potential employers.

Underline and develop your Networking skills

Once your blog has begun to feature prominently in relation to the necessary keywords, you can begin to refine your content in a bid to communicate effectively with employers and brands. The publication of increasingly insightful and targeted content is the basis for thought leadership, which in turn serves as an entry point into a relationship with specific brands and recruiters. This is a critical stage as you look to network with influential industry figures and engage them effectively.

To effectively communicate with employers and network efficiently, there are several steps that you can take. The most important is to ensure that your content is as insightful as possible, so it may be worth publishing on a less frequent basis while also creating slightly longer and more detailed posts. It may also be worth reviewing targeted news and branded websites to identify real-time inspiration for your content, while you must also look to share this proactively across an integrated social media platform.

Humanize your blog and infuse your unique Personality

If you look at traditional job search forums and applications, it can be extremely difficult to impart your unique persona and the characteristics that distinguish you from other candidates. A regularly updated and opinion-based blog offers a more expansive platform from which to communicate with employers, however, while also ensuring that your content is humanized and elevated beyond the mere publication of newsworthy events.

The balance between publishing content that is both topical and opinionated is difficult to achieve, and this explains why well-structured, longer pieces often offer the most value to readers. There is research which suggests that the optimal length of a detailed blog post is between 2,000 and 2,500 words, as this allows ample opportunity to create data-driven content that is also personalized and opinion-led in parts. It is your unique perspective that humanizes your blog, so be sure to create a structure that enables this to shine.

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