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Blogging for Maximum Inbound Marketing Impact

 

There are more than 133 million blogs on the Internet with bloggers posting in excess of 900,000 new blog posts every day. With that kind of competition, it's a challenge just to get your blog noticed and even more difficult to keep your blog on readers' radar. Creating a blog with a high level of readability is an important key to gaining and maintaining dedicated readers.

To attract readers and entice them to return, try these tips:

  • blogging attracts visitors and helps convert them to leadsPresent interesting content. Content should be original, varied, useful and interesting to site visitors and should have an obvious connection to your business or product.
  • Be effectively organized. Blog posts should be easy to find on the page and quick to access with a click. Choose a standard format for headline and content presentation to give your blog a unified look. Create a logical list of categories and tags to make it easy for readers to find and access similar content.
  • Be visually attractive. Select font sizes and color contrasts that are easy to read. Short paragraphs create more white space and appear more visually pleasing and more accessible to readers. Use underlining, highlighting and bulleted or numbered lists to break up content grayness and improve readability. Illustrations add visual interest and attract readers.
  • Use language articulately. Use proper grammar, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation in your blog posts. Use the spell checker and proofread blogs before you post them.
  • Be written in a suitable voice. The "voice" in which you write creates your blog's personality and molds the reader's view of your company or product. Choose a voice that is in synch with your inbound marketing strategy, the image of your company you wish to portray and your targeted readership. Depending on the company image you wish to build, your voice might be humorous, flippant, educational, compassionate, practical, etc. Blogging is an opportunity to connect with potential customers on an informal level. Use your voice to create a more personal bond with readers, just realize that your voice will also color readers' perceptions about your firm.
  • Post new content on a regular basis. New content creates a reason for readers to return to your blog. A minimum of three posts a week, spaced about every other day, will keep readers coming back for more.
  • Encourage your readers to subscribe. Place an RSS feed subscription button and e-mail subscription form in a prominent position on your blog page. A brief description of your overall blog subject matter and how often you post is also a good idea to convince your readers to subscribe. By converting readers to subscribers, you are far more likely to add repeat visitors to your site, which ultimately can yield loyal followers and sales leads.

Some people were born to blog. Some of them work for us.

Photo credit: stijnbokhove


Comments

Thanks John. Agree on all points. Blogging and writing for the web should really accommodate scanning. When scanning articles, readers typically read the left-most areas of paragraphs and "fade off" as they reach the right side of the paragraph (since we naturally read from left to right). 
 
As you mentioned, short paragraphs and bulleted lists help with "scan-ability." Images that support your body copy also are effective - particularly if you're writing a How-To article (just remember to put the proper ALT text behind the image for SEO reasons). 
 
Lastly, your point about a publishing schedule is extremely important. We, like most marketers and business owners, struggle with finding time to blog. By making it a part of your weekly schedule, it helps you remain consistent. The only way to reap the benefits of blogging is by consistently putting out great content.  
 
Thanks again John for the great article!
Posted @ Monday, July 26, 2010 9:32 AM by Jeff Coon
Jeff, 
 
Good call on the eye-tracking and SEO tips. You're right, the big challenge is time and topics. A busy CEO, for example, should think about capturing thoughts during the day or even in off-time and letting someone else put the ideas into blog format. One way to do this is to use your smart phone - get an app that lets you capture voice memo's (I have one on my iPhone called, oddly enough, Voice Memos). Then, blog away by voice and send your ideas to your favorite blogger to put it together. You shouldn't assume that no one wants to hear from you. Everyone does. Customers, shareholders, employees, friends and family. They all want to know what you're thinking.
Posted @ Monday, July 26, 2010 12:20 PM by John McTigue
Great article John, I like your suggestions of blogging every other day since most CEO's don't have the time to blog everyday... Posting educational content is very helpful and lends itself to be shared more... I also like the short and sweet articles.. This is hard for some bloggers since they are used to writing more prolific articles... 
 
Overall great article... Thanks for sharing!
Posted @ Tuesday, July 27, 2010 5:30 PM by RM - InBoundMarketingPR
Thanks RM (Rosemary?) - It has a lot to do with peoples' attention span. We all get used to scanning quickly - short and sweet, highlighted and bullet is the way we pay attention these days. I still like to read books though!
Posted @ Tuesday, July 27, 2010 5:38 PM by John McTigue
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