While social media has disrupted all industries, it’s had a special impact on retail and marketing. Nowadays, more people read blogs than they do traditional magazine articles, and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have created an entire new industry — marketing.
Traditional marketing techniques such as billboards, magazine spreads, and TV ads have been disrupted by new digital marketing methods. But it’s not just about traditional marketing. The new digital marketing tactics we’ll discuss in this article will help you market your online presence in any way that’s most effective for you.
1. Create content that shares your values.
People love engaging with content that shares their cultural values, and that’s a type of content you can produce in abundance through a blog. If your blog posts are inspiring, informative, or just make you laugh, you’re bound to connect with your audience and gain some good traction. If you want to find the best way to market your blog, start by asking yourself questions about your cultural values, and consider what makes you different from other brands.
For example, if you’re a business that creates health and wellness content, your blog probably already shares valuable information about diet and nutrition. But does it also share your values regarding health and wellness? What are your feelings about tobacco and alcohol? Are you a brand that embraces diversity and inclusivity? Your blog posts may not directly answer these questions, but they can help point you in the right direction so you can answer them for your own brand.
2. Use keywords in your blogs’ content.
When you publish a blog post, make sure you include keywords throughout the content. Doing this can help your post to be found by people who are searching for those specific keywords. If you want to effectively market your blog, you have to consider what your readers are searching for. After all, no one wants to visit a site that’s difficult to discover. Use the Google Keyword Planner for inspiration and drill down into the main keywords that you and your team should be targeting.
3. Build a community.
One of the things that makes a blog stand out is its interactivity. Readers can engage with the content through comments and social media shares. If you want to attract an audience and encourage them to engage with you, establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry by regularly publishing insightful and quality content.
To build a community of engaged followers, consider using platforms like Twitter, where you can engage with your audience through quick, snappy tweets.
And don’t just consider building a following on social media. You can also establish your blog as a hub for inbound marketing, attracting potential customers who are seeking direction and inspiration through high-quality content and engaging with you via email.
4. Use a call-to-action.
The success of a blog largely depends on the quality of the content and the effective use of a call-to-action (CTA). A CTA is a type of marketing used in advertising that prompts the reader to take a specific action, such as buy a product or click a link. The more you can do to attract potential customers and grow your business, the more you will succeed via content marketing.
To encourage people to visit your blog and make a purchase, you can use various methods. One of the simplest and most effective is by asking them to subscribe to your email list so you can keep in touch with them. When someone signs up for your email list, you can send them a welcome email that contains a link to your blog that’s hosted on a free domain (something like mybloggingaccount.com).
From there, you can use an autoresponder service to continue the messaging and encourage them to visit your site — and hopefully make a purchase.
5. Measure the success of your blog posts.
Even if you’ve published a blog post that was extremely well-written and sparked lots of interest, without any tracking data it’s still difficult to determine how successful it was in terms of driving business. Fortunately, there are tools available to help you measure the effectiveness of your blog posts, such as Google Analytics.
Google Analytics provides you with data regarding the effectiveness of your blog posts — including the number of views they obtained, the countries they were viewed in, and the time of day they were most often accessed. By understanding this data, you can identify whether or not certain blog posts performed better than others, and better determine the value (or lack thereof) of each piece of content you publish.
6. Make your blogging easier for readers.
People come back to a blog frequently to find the information they need. To encourage them to continue exploring your site, consider using tools like WordPress and Google Analytics to make your blog easier to navigate. If you don’t have much experience with WordPress, consider using a tool like Squarespace, which provides you with everything you need to launch a professional-looking blog in minutes.
Adding a simple tool like this to your arsenal can make a world of difference:
- Helps bring more readers to your site
- Encourages them to stay there longer
- And drives more revenue through increased engagement and content sharing
7. Host and maintain your blog on a platform that’s secure.
As the owner of a blog, it’s your responsibility to keep it up and running smoothly. To do this, you must use a reliable and safe blogging platform that will allow you to write content without worrying about it being hacked or stolen.
If you use WordPress, you can take advantage of its built-in security features to keep your site safe. You don’t need to install any additional plugins or software to take advantage of these features.
These seven steps will help you in your quest to market your blog using content marketing. With just a few small changes to your strategy, you’re sure to see remarkable results.