There are times that owning a
business blog can be a bit depressing. After all, you thought and obsessed over getting just the right domain name. You put a lot of time, energy, and money into designing the perfect header and layout. You proofread and tweaked your about us and services page 20 different times to make sure they are compelling and fresh. And yet, your analytics shows that you’re only getting 15 new visitors per month, and 95% of those are bouncing back off. The few comments that you do get are obvious spam. What gives?
The bitter truth is that you can do everything right in building your blog, even to the point of hiring a professional to do it for you, and still not get noticed on the web. Why? Because it takes a lot more than top-notch code and a few paragraphs of text for Google to even think about ranking you highly. The good news is that there is hope. Follow these 5 tips, be diligent and patient, and you’ll soon start to see new visitors coming to your site…and sticking around for a while:
1. Start with a lot of content. Proper code is important, yes, but it can only do so much. Google needs to know that your blog is relevant to search terms. The only way you have to show them that is to have a great deal of content that contains those words. I’m not talking about stuffing one or two phrases in your blog every other sentence. I’m talking about creating a multitude of pages with a moderate keyword density that covers every aspect of who your business is and what it does.
2. Publish new content often. Your original content is just your foundation. In order to keep looking relevant, you need to be publishing new, fresh, and
relevant content to your blog as often as possible. It also needs to be regular. Whether it’s twice a day every day or just one new post two or three times a week, make a publishing schedule and stick to it.
3. Assess your platform. Some platforms are more search engine friendly than others. I highly recommend Wordpress because Google seems to love it and you don’t have to be a webmaster to make it work. Moreover, Wordpress will alert you when your platform needs updating and you can install optimization plug-ins to give your blog a little extra search engine power. If your platform isn’t working for you, see what else is out there and consider making a switch.
4. Get busy on social media sites. If you’re not willing to promote your blog, then how can you expect others to? Tweet, post to Facebook, put links on LinkedIn, and alert your friends on Google+ every time you add a new blog post. You can even get active on various forums and look for threads that ask questions related to your posts, then offer a link to your blog that addresses the problem. The point is that, to start, you’re going to have to alert the world that you exist and that you have something valuable to offer.
5. Mix it up with video. Video is becoming an increasingly popular form of marketing communication. While you don’t need to overdo it,
adding some videos here and there can make your blog look more interesting and offers something to those visitors who simply don’t want to read through an entire post. Making your own videos is the ideal, but you can also take advantage of the vast selection on YouTube if you’re just starting to test the waters. Choose a quality video that is relevant to your business and embed it on your blog. Write a quick blurb summarizing the video and then a short call to action. You can even include a link to one of your blog posts that provides more detailed information after they watch the clip.
The Internet is a competitive place, but don’t lose heart. Getting noticed online takes hard work and the right techniques. It’s not going to happen overnight. If you stick with it, you’ll start to notice your traffic increasing exponentially every month.