According to a research conducted by Hubspot, blogging is a top priority for 53% of marketers.
Another study shows that about 43% of people skim over blog posts without reading the whole thing.
96% of bloggers use social media to promote their content, whereas 64% invest in SEO.
While several blogging trends will remain the same in 2019, many will also change. So how will all of this impact your blog? How can you set it up for success? Let’s devise a road map to ensure that you generate the required ROI levels through blogging.
Begin with Great Content
This is the simplest and most effective tip. Content is king. So until you focus on delivering value and quality, your blog will get you nowhere. After all, this is the only thing that ensures your visitors come back to your blog… again and again.
While you can write posts on your own, hiring blog writing services is often a preferable choice.
Add Guest Posting to Your To-Do List
So you’re already posting regularly on your blog. How about posting on other authority websites as well? Guest blogging builds your credibility and generates leads because you reach out to a wider audience.
However, you have to choose guest blogging websites carefully. Keep the following tips in mind when choosing a website:
- Determine your primary goals and establish key performance indicators.
- Develop detailed buyer personas.
- Search for websites that fall under your niche and then evaluate the quality of traffic on these sites. If it’s on the higher side, you can definitely try them out.
- Monitor the performance of your guest posts.
You can either appoint guest blog writers or write posts yourself.
Network and Establish Relationships
Relationships are meaningful in every single arena. So reach out to top bloggers in your domain and network with them. Comment on their posts, seek information, interact with them, interview them and get to know them better. How would this help your blog? Their followers will notice you, and so will the top bloggers. This can help you direct some traffic onto your blog and build fruitful partnerships.
Brand Your Blog
Your blog is a brand, and so are you. And what’s the basic rule of good branding? Consistency. Come up with a vision for your blog, set targets and then devise a strategy for achieving them. Decide the frequency of your posts, the kind of images that you will use, and how you will obtain them. You can design illustrations yourself, appoint a graphics designer or use royalty free images. Also, decide if you’d write the blogs on your own or seek blog writing services.
Come up with an attractive logo as well and ensure your website design is enticing.
Focus on the Design
No, you don’t need professional web designers to come up with a compelling design for your blog. You can use pre-built themes that can easily be customized without having to learn codes or development languages.
Set readable font types and sizes. Remove clutter from the sidebar and only stick to widgets that offer value. Lastly, ensure the final design is clean and minimal – because in the blogging world, this is what works best.
So which of these strategies do you think would contribute most to the success of your blog? If all of this seems too overwhelming, you may be better off by working with professional blog writers, who’ll devise a complete roadmap that’ll help you accomplish your blogging goals.
Dave Brown is a Sr. Editor at Content Development Pros – a leading inbound marketing company that provides comprehensive content solutions, web design and development, SEO, and web copywriting services to small and mid-sized businesses. With more than a decade of experience and over 60,000 completed projects to their credit, they enjoy the trust of hundreds of regular customers from all industries and parts of the world.