Susan Payton: Taking Your Business Blog to the Next Level

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Now that you’ve started your business blog, it’s time for some advanced tactics to attract more readers, beef up your content, and become known as an expert in your industry.

Goal 1: Attract More Readers

You want your blog to ultimately drive traffic to the rest of your site so people will buy your products or services. That means you need to amp up the number of readers your blog gets so that you’ll convert a decent number of them into customers.

One of the best places to find new blog readers is through social media. You should be sharing every post you publish through your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google + page. Here are a few strategies to improve the clicks you get:

• Customize your update. Simply relying on links to your posts being autopublished isn’t enough. Also craft updates that will really make people curious to click on the link to your post.
• Schedule updates consistently. Use tools like HootSuite to schedule updates to publish for days after a new post goes live. Make each update different, and entice people in different ways.
• Use Social Buzz Club. This social sharing community gets people posting your content to social in exchange for you doing the same.

Goal 2: Beef Up Your Content

This will help you attract more readers, as well! Focus on delivering the kinds of content your audience wants. Not sure what they’re interested in? Ask them. Use social media to poll your followers on the types of content they want, or send your email subscribers a survey. Here are even more tactics:

• Use analytics. See which posts are getting the most views, and write more on similar subjects, or in similar styles.
• Turn one piece of content into many posts. Say you have a whitepaper on 101 ideas to start a business. Use that to spin off 101 different blog posts.
• Keep a list of topic ideas. I keep a spreadsheet handy so I never run out of ideas, and I have a place to put them when inspiration strikes.

Goal 3: Become an Expert

You already are an expert; it’s just a matter of convincing others of that. Do this by finding your voice on your blog. You can be controversial, inquisitive, a news-breaker, an explainer…whatever you want. Just be consistent and be known for that style of content. Carry this over on social by answering people’s questions. Here’s more:

• Hit those pain points. If you know what your audience cares about, you can show off your expertise by helping them find the solutions they’re seeking through great content.
• Guest blog. Find reputable sites where you can contribute content and further brand yourself as an expert.
• Find speaking engagements. Further your expertise branding by speaking at conferences and events.

As you see, a more advanced blogging strategy goes far beyond the pages of your WordPress account. Make your blog the center of your efforts, but use whatever marketing techniques work to establish your blog as a go-to resource in your industry.

Originally published at: Egg Marketing & Communications