Is your blog interesting to anyone besides you? Do you want it to be? Sure you do. Blogs are public forums for you to share your unique thoughts and perspective, so if you don’t have much of a following, here are a few things you can do to make your blog it’s best.
Make a footprint in the blogosphere. Blogs are a dime a dozen these days, so you have to know what your blog is about. You also have to know how yours is unique in order for it to stand a chance against all the other ones out there. This is basically your brand, but if you do it well, you’ll earn a reputation and readers will come to your blog when word spreads.
Your blog has two audiences: humans and search spiders. You must entertain and inform them both. People need snazzy titles and content and spiders need topical information. Spiders will basically assign your blog a spot in the search engines, so it’s up to you to make sure you’re titling posts in a way that will help people find your blog for what you intend them too. If you make a title called Cat Nap, but your blog has nothing to do with cats, that won’t help people find you.
Blogging is a community. Participate in other people’s blogging efforts. Obviously, you have unique content, but there will be others doing similar things. You can take advantage of this in a positive way. Get to know these guys, comment on their posts, give and receive guest posts, link each other. Offer contests and giveaways and ask others to spread the word. Foster relationships with both readers and other bloggers.
Use all five senses. Sure, blogging is usually heavily weighted with text. But visitors will likely get bored if all you have is words, words, words. Add some video. Do a podcast. I haven’t figured out how to do scratch and sniff or make it tasty, but you get the idea. A variety of media in your content will make your blog much more attractive. I add a photo to every post to give a taste of the subject matter and hook the potential reader. Also, work your text to make it more visually interesting. Think about spacing, italics, font choice and color. And don’t forget that your voice is important. Whatever tone you use in your writing, it should be appropriate to your subject, relatable and interesting.
Show your character. The best blogs offer things we can’t easily get elsewhere. That includes new information like trade secrets, or a funny tone that makes us feel great after we’ve visited the blog and read a great post. That comes from people who take risks in their writing and info sharing. Of course it’s wise to decide ahead of time where to draw a line, but drive right up to that line and watch it reward you. Others will link to you and share your posts. Then it’s up to you to fulfill their expectations with great follow-up posts. If you do, you’ll be satisfied with the results.
Chris Kincaid is a twenty year marketing professional and writes extensively on business including local topics such as graphic design in Michigan and Ann Arbor web design.
Tags: advertising, graphic design, marketing, web design