Creating a blogging strategy isn’t easy. Strategy, you say? What strategy?
In the first place, blogging involves more than just occasionally posting something once in a while.
Certainly, blogging is hard work – if you’re doing it correctly. Above all, it takes careful thought and planning. Consequently, your writing – that attempt at communication with a potential client or customer – has to resonate with your readers.
“But it’s not working!” you say. “What am I doing wrong?”
I hear that question a lot from clients who have a blog. My answers?
- You’re not being patient – blogging success doesn’t come overnight. Moreover, it can take three to six months of consistent blogging to see results.
- You’re focusing more on metrics than content. Similarly, what you say in your blog matters.
- More traffic doesn’t always translate to more sales. Why? Because somewhere along the line, your message has gotten lost or it wasn’t there to start.
Your blogging strategy matters
An alarming number of businesses that contact me don’t have a blog. In short, business blogs are one of the foundations to success these days. Most importantly, consistency in producing quality, high-value blogs is essential. As a result, you create a gradual yet steady growth of baseline traffic to your site.
Sure, you want to track and pay attention to SEO metrics and Google Analytics, subscribers and social media shares. However, if you don’t connect to your reader on some level, you’ve already failed.
So, here’s a question for you. Does your audience care about what you have to say? If you’re not where you want to be at this point in your business or service delivery, maybe it’s time to critique this angle of your marketing approach.
- Do your blogs inform, educate, and engage your target audience?
- Are your blog posts specialized and provide value to your clients?
- Do you consider the value of a well-written blog for your business?
- Do your current blogs need editing to get the message across?
How do you know the answers to these questions?
Engagement.
In short, you can get all the shares, clicks, and traffic you could desire, but if you’re not making sales, something’s wrong.