Friday 24 August 2012

How to maximise your blog followers

No matter what online business you run, the majority of people will have their own online blog to help improve their SEO standing and create a platform to regularly engage with and inform their audience. 

As there are so many people producing a steady stream of content on a daily basis, how do you help your blog stand out from the rest and tell people that they must come to your blog because your content is a must read for anyone?

Originality

This is the most obvious aspect of any online blog. The content needs to not only be entertaining to your readers, it also needs to be as original as it possibly can. What you don't want to do is simply look through other peoples blogs, find an article you like and then copy it into your own blog. This is extremely bad for three reasons: 

  • Duplicated content is frowned upon by Google and will result in your search engine ranking going down
  • Readers won't want to visit your blog to read an article that they have just read on another website.
  • It will damage the whole credibility of your business as customers will see this plagiarism, instantly making you seem untrustworthy.

When producing content for your online store, you are going to find that whatever subject you choose to write about, it has pretty much been covered by someone else previously. However, blogs are a great platform for personal opinion. So taking this into account, look to put a different spin on the subject. Look at it from an angle that others previously haven't considered, including any personal opinions you have on the subject. This will give you the best chance to make your content as original as you possibly can. 

Place your content everywhere

If your content is interesting and appealing to an audience, you are going to get people who will specifically come to your blog to read your latest posts. However, you shouldn't just post a blog article then sit back and wait for them to come to your site. Like any good salesman, you should be out there advertising your content, encouraging them to come to your site and take a look at what you have on offer. 

This doesn't just mean sharing your content with fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter, you should be playing your content on social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. The more external links you can create to your blog, the greater chance you have of people visiting it. You can also look to promote your content as a rebuttal on other blogs. For example, like I said earlier, you should look to create content that looks at certain aspects of your profession but at a different angle. You can then visit another blog that has a post on the same particular topic and link your blog post in the comments for readers to gain another point of view. 

Encourage interaction

When you place content out into the public domain, you can often be worried about any criticism or negative opinions it might generate. You need to get past this and understand that interaction on your blog is not only a great way to gain readers, but it is also a superb way to gain some exposure for your blog and your business as a whole. If someone disagrees with a point that you have made in your blog then reply to the comment with response to their opinion. This then encourages others to get involved and creates a platform for discussion, improving your relationship with these users. This is how you will build up some of your regular blog followers. 

When replying to a comment, you should always remember that you are seen as the authoritative, professional source. Even if someone's comment infuriates you, keep your cool and don't launch an attack on the user. This will just alienate a number of users from your blog and damage your public image. Reply in a manner that is professional and courteous, keeping your cool and explaining your side of the discussion in a clear, concise way.  

Be selective with keywords

 A large part of SEO comes in having the right keywords in your text and writing a blog is no different. The more relevant your keywords, the more likely your article is going to be found in search engines. When writing an article about a particular topic, you should always consider what keywords you wish to place in the text. This will then allow you to write the article in a way that includes these keywords, while still making sense to your audience.

If you are unsure which keywords to use in your blog, you can use a keyword program such as Google's Keyword Tool to find out which are the most searched for words both locally and globally. You can then incorporate these words into your articles to ensure that you have the best chance of people finding your article through a search engine and then visiting your ecommerce business as a result.

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