Key Points for Building a Better Blog

There are two kinds of blogs: those worth reading and those that shouldn’t even exist.

If your sole purpose of a blog has always been for SEO reasons, then you fall into the latter category. This should be the year you decide to scrap it or do something different because a better strategy will bring qualified leads to your website.

Start by stopping. Stop worrying about link-building strategies, keyword optimization, Google Page Rank, and all the other nonsense. Stop overlooking the most important element of a successful (therefore top-ranking) blog… that they are actually worth reading.

Mix it up

A blog doesn’t have to be entirely articles. Trigger and intrigue other senses with visual blogs such as a video or info graphic. Keep traffic engaged with an audio podcast they can listen to while multitasking because time is precious.

Have a point

If you don’t have something worth saying, don’t bother saying anything at all. Blogs are for your audience, not for you.

Take another look at quality vs quantity

One of the most misinterpreted wisdom circulating the Internet marketing industry is to put quality first. If you follow this logic, you might be only publishing one to two posts a week. That’s a good start, but it works on an individual level too. A strong topic and effective post do not have to be a certain length (or word count).

Find Suitable Images in High Quality

Don’t leave your blog simply with text. Make sure to add visually appealing images related to your blog, as a picture is worth a thousand words. If you have found an image over the web, but it’s not in the right dimensions or quality, you can submit it to the photo search utility to find better versions available over the web. This tool allows you to explore results from multiple search engines, including Google, Yandex, Bing, etc.

Optimize for the right audience.

Just forget that search engines exist for a moment. That’s not the point of a blog. Successful content marketing focuses on your core audience(s) and should appeal more to your best customers. It helps to filter out unqualified traffic.

Clean it up

If your blog has fallen into the “waste of web space” category then you should clean it up. Delete all posts that are useless and worthless. Even if it means you have to start over entirely from scratch, there’s no point in keeping something that offers nothing of value. Make room for something that is useful.

Tell a story

This is a general trigger when looking for a topic idea. There are—or should be—stories that express a message. Stories that the right audience will relate to. Stories that define the why behind who you are and how you do business.

If you don’t have any personal stories on your blog… go tell one now!