Whether you write a blog for your business or you blog about your own personal niche, there’s no denying that it’s a lot of hard work. From creating the content to promoting it and making sure your website stays up to date, it takes a lot more effort to run a blog than people realize.
But if you find that you’re putting a lot of effort into your blog, but it’s not producing results, you might need to rethink how you can get the most out of your blog.
Here are some tips to make your blog work harder for you.
Make sure your design is accessible and built for mobile
Web design changes and evolves, sometimes quicker than you might realize. It’s important to make sure your website is accessible and easy to navigate, and most importantly, mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendly websites are easy to achieve thanks to responsive layout and features provided by your web host. Keep your navigation simple and make sure your images are the appropriate size.
As more and more people browse the internet from their personal devices, a responsive layout is one way to ensure you appeal to the widest number of people.
A responsive web design isn’t just useful to visitors, it can benefit your SEO too. This will help your blog become more visible in search engine results, driving up your monthly visitors.
Don’t settle for any old content
It’s easy for blog content to become stale. Everyone gets writer’s block from time to time, and your ideas can simply dry up. If you’re feeling uninspired by your own content, then the chances are that your readers feel the same. So how can you make your content more inspiring?
Some of the ways you can make your blog less boring include:
- Using videos
- Adding infographics
- Using more photos to break up content
- Vary the length of your content
While listicles and similar articles might have been popular in recent years, they’re starting to become dull. Think outside the box when it comes to your content and make some lists of potential ideas that could prove popular with your readers.
Spend time analyzing your best and worst-performing posts to work out what types of content your readers enjoy. You should also spend time reading other blogs to see what kind of content you enjoy – if you’re writing content that you care about, your passion and enthusiasm will show through and inspire others.
Collaborate with others to grow your audience
The right kinds of partnerships can help your blog grow. From working with other bloggers by exchanging guest blogs to seeking backlinks with other websites, there are different ways you can collaborate with others to grow your audience.
Another way to grow your audience and put your blog on the map is to seek partnerships with brands. Seeking these types of partnerships can help you benefit from a brand’s already established platform, and could even lead to some paid or gifted opportunities for your blog.
Monetize your blog
On the subject of paid partnerships, monetizing your blog is another way for you to get more out of it. There are a lot of ways you can monetize your blog, including providing advertising space, sponsored posts and of course, affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs provide a simple way of earning money, earning commissions on the products you recommend and drive people towards. Many people enjoy great earnings through affiliate marketing, so if it’s something you haven’t explored yet, why not give it a try?
Develop an effective promotion strategy
Some people choose to write a blog for fun, as a hobby, with no attention or interest paid to how many people see it. However, if you want to monetize your blog or have it attract attention, you need to develop an effective marketing strategy to go with it.
There are some very effective ways you can promote your blog, including social media channels, paid advertising and improving your SEO. For each post you publish, you should think of the ways you can promote it, helping to boost your views while hopefully encouraging visitors to take in other content or subscribe to receive your latest updates.
Use other social channels to boost your blog content
Your social media channels can provide additional content to help strengthen your blog, and help it reach different audiences. Pinterest is a great example of a channel that can be used to drive traffic to your blog. Instagram, YouTube and Twitter also make great companions to your blog, providing you with some large audiences to potentially reach.
Social media content can be much easier to produce and could give you some creative ideas that can transfer to your blog too.
Your social channels can be one of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your blog. By spending time growing your audience on those channels, you could soon develop an engaged and devoted online presence that can grow the popularity of your blog, and help you make money online too.
Create valuable evergreen content
One of the most challenging things about writing a blog is posting regularly. When you’re stuck for ideas, it can interrupt the flow of your posting schedule. One way you can overcome this is to create a bank of valuable evergreen content that you can publish when you’re stuck for other ideas. The next time you’re having a creative day, see if you can write more than one post so that you can keep the other for the next time you’re running low on inspiration.
Your blog can be a work of passion, and sometimes it just works. But if you want to get the most out of your blog, you need to work hard to help it shine too. From focusing on creating more engaging content to using different channels to promote your blog, you can make your blog work harder for you, helping to turn your work of passion into a success.