Did you know there are over 152 million blogs online? Daunting to think about if you’re just starting your online business. Starting a blog is hard work, and there are a lot of pitfalls along the way. Especially if it’s your first time.
What’s Your Brand About?
I’m not going to go over the tech part, there are a lot of great blogs that will move you through getting your domain, which platform to use and SEO tips.
My focus is on your actual business. The brand.
Before you invest in anything else, do a SWOT analysis. It doesn’t have to be in-depth, a quick list of your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats, will help you define your brand message.
Define at least 3 to 5 of your competitors. Review their service offering and ask if you can do better. Try to find a pocket of opportunity that your competition is not serving, this could be your winning formula.
Build an email list. Don’t forget them
Over time, your email list will become your biggest source of traffic – and sales – if you treat your subscribers right. Here are a few facts about email marketing:
- Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind only colleague recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders. (Wordstream)
- Email continues to be the main driver of customer retention and acquisition for small and midsize businesses. According to the data, 81% of SMBs still rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel, and 80% for retention (Emarsys, 2018).
- Welcome emails are incredibly effective: on average, 320% more revenue is attributed to them on a per email basis than other promotional emails. (Wordstream)
Pick the best website platform
WordPress is still by far the best platform for a blog or a website. The flexibility, plugins and the ability to optimize your site for search is far superior to other platforms.
Share your content
Most people usually post their new blog, share it on social media and hope for the best. Here are the best places to share your new blog post:
- Create a list of influencers and contact them either directly or via social media.
- Niche related social media groups and forums
- Quora
- Press, if applicable
- Email List
Create a marketing communications plan!
If you want your blog to turn into a business, then you’ll need to create a marketing communications plan. Add an editorial calendar for your content, press, events and seasonal programs. This planning will help you to be consistent with your blog content as well as develop better promotional tactics for your blog posts.
Update Your blog Consistently
The internet, Google, WordPress, these and other technologies are consistently updating their algorithms and platforms. You need to also update your blog, either by removing old content and updating others.
When you’re starting out, our tendency is to fly by the seat of our pants. We’re so excited to start our blog and we’ve got a ton of ideas for our blog. But every experienced blogger will tell you that updating your old posts can result in a significant increase in traffic.
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