Blogging for your business must have a definite purpose, a purpose that matters to your business and to your audience. For most businesses, at least one purpose is using a blog to drive traffic to their own websites, but that cannot happen effectively unless the blog offers something of value to its readers; otherwise, no one will pay any attention to the blog and the purpose will not matter.
Relevance Matters
If I am writing a blog article that will entice readers to notice it, I have to pay attention to a number of things – first of all, my content must be meaningful and sincere. It must meet the expectations of my readers. Whatever I write about must be relevant to what the reader expects when he or she visits our blog. Other writers must do the same.
For example, the articles I write for this blog focus on blogging itself. Others in the company write in their areas of expertise. Our web designers write about topics of interest to other web designers; our analysts write about testing and other interesting trends in this area, and this holds true for everyone who writes for our blog.
Each of us must offer content that makes sense to a visitor looking for specific types of information if we want them to return to our blog.
Headlines Matter
For a blog post to capture the attention of the audience, we have to provide a decent headline and there are many ways to do this – that’s my next blog topic, by the way – but the main thing to remember is that if we want our readers to trust us and come back to read anything else we write, we must offer up a headline that gives the reader what he or she expects to find by perusing the article further.
Most people using the Internet don’t appreciate or have the time to be tricked. So headlines that say one thing followed by unrelated content won’t win the confidence of your visitors.
Entice your readers with an honest headline and then deliver the content to support it.
Consistency Matters
One thing that will turn visitors away immediately is an outdated blog. If I go to a blog and the last post was three months ago, I won’t waste my time there. I’m looking for the most up-to-date information I can find when I search for blogs about any topic. If one blog doesn’t deliver fresh content, another one will, and I will find it!
If you want to build a loyal audience, your content must be updated consistently to build your credibility and allure your readers to return.
Focusing on our primary purposes for blogging, whatever those purposes may be, can be accomplished if we work diligently to deliver consistent, relevant information that provides value to our readers without tricking them with empty, meaningless headlines.
Want to start blogging for your company but not sure how to begin? Contact Xcellimark for more information on how to get your blog up and running.
