There is a lot of buzz surrounding the concept of online marketing these days, and for good reason. The ability to connect with potential customers and keep them interested in your product or service is much easier said than done. With the right strategy, marketing materials, and a little bit of luck, you can find success in your online marketing endeavors.
Define Your Target Audience
To begin with, you need to identify your target audience before you develop your strategy. This is going to be your basis for everything, so take your time figuring out who exactly you are trying to serve with your content.
Who are you targeting with your content? Think about this question and answer it honestly. You can start by considering who you currently are serving with your products and services. If you’re selling jewelry, you’re probably targeting women. If you’re a real estate agent, you’re probably targeting men. It’s good to have a general idea of who you’re targeting, but you need to get very specific with your research.
Once you have your target audience defined, you can start considering what they want. For example, if you know that women tend to buy jewelry as a “status symbol,” then you know what kind of content to create to attract and retain women as customers. Keep in mind that your product or service should not be the focus of your content. Instead, you should aim to attract people who are interested in your product or service and have them read your blog post or visit your website. Focus on the content that is most relevant to your target audience and uses language that they will understand and relate to.
What Platform Should You Use To Publish Blogs?
After you’ve defined your target audience and know what they want, you need to decide what platform you are going to use to publish your blog posts. It is important to note that although WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in use today, it is not the only option. You can use other free platforms like Blogger to get started, but the important thing is that you choose one and learn to master it.
WordPress offers some really beneficial features that make it very easy to use. The best part is that it is extremely plugin-friendly. This means that you can install additional apps and tools that can enhance the functionality of your blog. Some of the most popular plugins for WordPress include:
- Akismet – This is a spam fighting tool that WordPress users recommend heavily.
- Countly – This is a tool that allows you to track the number of times your content is referenced or linked to.
- WooCommerce – This is a free eCommerce plugin for WordPress that allows you to create an online store.
- Batch – This allows you to post multiple times across various platforms simultaneously.
The key thing to keep in mind is that whatever platform you use, you should learn how to use it properly. Don’t just dive in and expect to figure everything out as you go. Learning how to use the platform properly takes some time, but is an investment that will pay off in the long run. When choosing a platform, make sure that you learn about the pros and cons of each one. The more you know, the better your decisions will be in the future.
Curate Content for International Readers
One of the things that make the Internet so valuable today is the global reach that it provides. People from all over the world can easily access the information that they need, creating huge opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses.
If you’re a blogger who writes primarily for an American audience, you might not need to think about international readers too much. You’ll probably know what kind of content they want and can provide it without too much effort. However, if you’re struggling to gain traction with your blog or website, then expanding your target audience beyond U.S. borders might be exactly what you need.
If you’re worried about whether or not your content is going to be comprehensible to international readers, then you can always opt for a translated copy or have a local company do the translating for you. This is usually a free service that many content platforms like Medium offer, and it’s definitely something to consider if you’re looking to expand your audience.
Decide How Long You Are Going to Keep Updating Your Blog
Once you’ve found a blogging platform that you like, the next step is to decide how long you are going to keep updating your blog with new content. Once again, this step should not be taken lightly. If you’ve defined your target audience and know what kind of content they want, then you should have an idea of when you are going to post again. Take some time to plan out a schedule and stick to it.
You also need to decide how often you are going to post and the kind of content that you are going to put out. The best blogging platform for keeping people interested is one that provides fresh content frequently. If you want to write about the same topics every week, then consider creating a blog that is only composed of roundups of existing articles or using a content curation platform like Buzzfeed to maintain interest.
Make Sure That Your Blog Is Search Engine Optimized
Last but not least, we have search engine optimization (SEO). Just because your blog is online does not mean that it is automatically going to appear in the Google search results for whatever keywords or phrases you are using. In order to appear in the search results, your blog needs to be optimized for search engines.
There are free tools like Google Keyword Planner that can help you find the best keyword combinations to optimize your blog for. Don’t just pick any old words — make sure that your chosen phrases are both relevant to and popular among your target audience. If you want to write about dog grooming, but your target audience is mostly hippie-type vegans, then you might want to consider changing your topic to something more general like “self-care” or “healthy living” to ensure that you appear in the right places when people are searching for content related to dogs and grooming.
Keep your blog updated and relevant. If you can, perform some SEO on your blog posts before you put them out there. Doing this a few weeks before your actual blog post date can help tremendously in getting more traffic and possibly even generating some sales. SEO takes some time to show results, but it is definitely a worthwhile investment.
With the right tools, some determination, and a little bit of luck, you can find online marketing that works. Don’t get discouraged if your blog doesn’t start off quickly. Instead, continue to build up your audience and find communities of interested people that you can connect with. You’ll soon see that the rewards of an engaged audience can be invaluable.