If you’re not already blogging on your site, you should be, and if you are blogging, you should be making a continuous effort to get more out of your blogging efforts. That’s not to say that you need to drastically change what you’re doing if it’s working for you, but since the internet and internet marketing are dynamic entities, it’s important that you check in from time to time and make sure that you’re keeping up with current practices in terms of the frequency and length of your blog posts, as well as assessing your content to ensure that what you’re writing is both relevant and attention-grabbing.
Frequency and Length
There is a lot of debate over the “right” length for blog posts, or how often you should be putting content out. For every expert who says that long posts once a week work best, you can find five bloggers who have had better success with shorter, more frequent posts. So the key to finding what works for you is metrics – experiment with various post lengths and frequencies, and then take a look at your analytic reports to see what your readers respond best to.
Subject Matter
It’s a common misconception that blogs should only contain information that has a direct connection back to the company. But think about how boring that would be if every single post on your blog was simply an advertisement for your business in paragraph form! There are plenty of other places for your structured marketing copy; your blog offers you an opportunity to talk about a range of topics that your target audience might find interesting, and the side effect is that when they come to your blog to read the post, then you have the opportunity to get them to stick around by showing them what you have to offer. Trying to stick them with the hard sell every time right off the bat probably isn’t going to win you any fans.
Attention-Grabbing Titles
The title of your blog post is arguably more important than the content itself, or at least it’s as important. The hardest part about hooking your audience is getting them on the site in the first place, and that’s where a good title comes in. Make sure that your titles pop, and that they offer the reader a promise of some information that can help them (and then deliver on that promise in the body of the post!).
How much time do you spend blogging each week? Are you noticing a reasonable return on your time and effort, or do you think some changes need to be made to the way you communicate through your blog?
