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February 13, 2013One of the most indispensable online marketing tools today is blogging. It’s hard to imagine implementing a successful online marketing campaign that doesn’t include a blog in the marketing mix. For online entrepreneurs, blogging plays a central role in their day-to-day strategy to provide their customers and their audience valuable information.
If you are new to blogging, it can seem like an overwhelming task. There are things you need to consider carefully so as not to waste your precious time. Effective blogging is supposed to help you increase leads for your business and deliver value to your audience.
If you do blogging the wrong way, you’re bound to waste valuable time and resources, as well as place your credibility in jeopardy.
To help you get the most out of your blogging pursuits, the following are some of the primary components of an effective blogging strategy:
- Social media share buttons
- Calls to action
- Blog layout
- Visuals (images and videos)
- Option for previews
- Fast loading speeds
Social media share buttons
Social media is exploding, obviously, and it’s providing great opportunities for bloggers to get the word out about their blog to a broad range of potential audience with remarkably little effort. As people spend more time online in the social networks, it’s important to integrate tools that will allow you to connect your blog instantly to the locations where folks are hanging out.
That’s why it’s crucial to incorporate social media share buttons into your blog. These include Facebook’s Like button, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and the Google+ +1 button.
However, you don’t want to overuse share buttons. Only include those that prove to be effective for your blog. The ones listed above are the ones we use here on the AudienceBloom blog; so far, each of these share buttons has provided us with tremendous results in terms of traffic and lead generation.
The calls to action
Calls to action are a must. After all, the ultimate goal of a business blog is to capture leads. One of the most powerful ways to capture leads is to include a call to action at the end of each of your blog posts. A call to action can be as simple as telling your readers where to get more information that complements your post, or letting them know where to sign up for a newsletter.
I often include a call to action at the conclusion of each of my blog posts to tell readers how to get information about our social media marketing services.
Blog layout
The layout of your blog is also crucial. Most successful business blogs are two-columned with a prominent header and spare amount of ads. Make it easy for your visitors to navigate around your blog: be sure to keep the layout simple and user-friendly.
Include visuals for stronger engagement
Visuals such as photos, videos, and infographics are some of the most engaging components of an effective blog. People are easily drawn to content that is complemented by strong visuals that strengthen the blog post’s message. The photos you use should either demonstrate your message or act as a nice introduction to give readers a visual sense of what to expect from your content.
Make it easy for readers to preview your content
We live in an extremely fast-paced era in which people are on the go and always in a hurry. That’s why when you write a post, you want to be sure to make it easy to scan by including lots of sub headers, bullets, and bolded words. If you do that, you will make it easier for your readers to get the message, even if they don’t take the trouble to go through your entire post.
Fast load speeds
Nothing is as annoying as a site that takes a long time to download. Load speed is now a ranking factor. Make sure your blog loads quickly to enhance user experience. Work with your developer to find out how to speed up your blog’s load speed.
Conclusion
There are lots of other things to mention about effective business blogging, but the tips we’ve provided in this post should be plenty to get you started right and achieve the results you expect from your business blog.
For inquiries on effective copywriting and content strategy for your business blog, contact us for your options.
Want more information on content marketing? Head over to our comprehensive guide on content marketing here: The All-in-One Guide to Planning and Launching a Content Marketing Strategy.
Sam Edwards
He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize on and off-site SEO ROI through content marketing and link building.
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