Launching a blog can be intimidating for a business that has yet to dip their toes into the waters of content marketing.
Determining content schedules, topics and more can all be hard things to nail down.
Below are six tips that you can apply now to organize your blog's operations and start growing your audience.
1. Define Your Online Value Proposition
Your online value proposition is the thing that makes you different from your competitors. What can your blog offer that no other blog can?
Defining your online value proposition will help make your blog and its content stand out from the rest.
Once you've got your online value proposition figured out, its important to keep to it and make sure all content fits within it.
2. Learn as Much as You Can About Your Audience
Conducting research into your target audience is vital in planning your blog's content. It helps ensure that the people you want to read your content are finding it and liking it.
Start by drafting a description of each persona you would like to target.
Find out what challenges they face everyday, and how you can create content to help solve problems and answer their questions. Hit up social media to see what your target personas are talking about with their peers.
3. Be Consistent
It's important to set expectations when it comes to your blog's new content frequency in order to build and keep your audience.
When your audience knows that they'll find something new on your blog every time they visit your site, they'll keep returning for more.
Posting a blog post every two or three months doesn't work for anyone. Set a reasonable content schedule for you and your team. Whether you decide to post one content item daily, weekly or monthly – stick to it.
4. Quality Trumps Quantity
Only create content when you have something valuable to say. Quality will get you more results than quantity.
Tip: Google rewards high-quality, reader-valuable content with high search result rankings.
5. Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is the gift that keeps on giving. Evergreen content has a healthy life-cycle and remains relevant over long periods of time. As a result of its longevity, an evergreen post will steadily attract new readers over the course of its entire lifetime.
6. Don't Write Sales Pitches
Content marketing works best with the exclusion of sales pitches. Don't use your blog to only promote your product or services. It's better to be subtle. Your target audience most likely wants content that is helpful and interesting, and less aggressive.
