Whether you have a personal blog that you use for journaling or you’re using your blog for business purposes, you’ll want to make it as good as it can be. Whether it’s finding inspiration for this month’s post or discovering a new way to monetize your blog, there’s always room for improvement. Here are a few tried-and-true ways to make your blog great.
1. Keep up with your industry. Whether you’re posting about the latest business initiative involving Shahram Shirkhani or you’re talking about how to travel on a budget, make sure you know what the latest trends are.
2. Discover the problems your customers or readers are having. Is there a gap in information that you can fill? Read blog posts by your competitors and check out the comments section to discover what people are asking about.
3. Has one of your partners, clients or customers recently celebrated a success? Blog about it! By including other people or brands in your blog post, you’ll increase exposure if they help market the post. To make this easier on them, send them an e-mail after the post is live with a link and tags to your Twitter and Instagram accounts.
4. Interview someone who’s successful in your niche. People love videos and this is a great way to provide content without having to put in a ton of work.
5. Always have a running list of blog post ideas. You should have your editorial calendar mapped out at least one month in advance. Any time you get an idea for a blog post, add it to your list, then pull from that list when you’re planning your calendar.
6. Subscribe to popular blogs in your niche. This will clue you into what other people in your industry are talking about and what areas have yet to be covered.
7. Add an eye-catching image to the top of every blog post. Make sure it relates to the content you’re writing.
8. People love reading case studies. If you don’t have the time or resources to conduct your own, post a recap of a case study in your field. You can add your own commentary to it to make it more personal.
9. Run surveys or polls on your blog. The poll can count as a blog post all on its own, then you can post additional blogs with the results of the survey.
10. Add share buttons for social media accounts. When someone likes your post, they’ll be able to easily share it with their followers.
A blog is a work in process. Continue to improve your blog so that traffic grows over time.
