Blogs are a great way to communicate with your customers in a less formal way. The best blogs out there are really engaging, but for every great blog, there are a fair few that remain unread.
So what is it about the best blogs that really make them work? Here are our thoughts:
Have great, useful content - this might seem obvious, but put yourself in the reader’s viewpoint: what do they want to get from your blog?
Have original content – don’t just repost content you have elsewhere. Blog posts need to be fresh and new
Be inspiring but humble - most businesses will want their blog posts to provoke some sort of action from their readers. But don’t pretend to have all the answers – ask questions of your readers, make them think
Encourage comments - comment sections are common place as default on most blog platforms, but how many bloggers actually encourage comments? Ask for feedback on your ideas, you’ll be surprised how many respond
Be educational – linked to the first point, content that educates your readers is sure to be popular. Lists (like this post!) are a great way to educate your readers around a particular subject area
Organise your content – make use of tags and categories to help your readers find related or similar content. Most blog platforms will make this very easy to set up and use
Post regularly – you don’t need to go overboard, but the more regularly you post, the more often visitors will come back. If you can only post once a week then that is fine, but just try and stick to this regularity
Make your content easy to share – embrace RSS and encourage visitors to add you to their blog reader. You can also use a service like Feedburner to allow your readers to subscribe to new posts via email
Promote your content elsewhere – don’t forget to use other social channels to promote your blog posts – Twitter and Facebook for example. Why not feature your most recent post on your website homepage?
Keep your blog focused – keeping your content focused around a particular theme or subject area will mean that readers are likely to stick around and read more of your posts
What else is there? What have we missed? What do you like best about your favourite blogs?
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