In our latest series of blogging 101 tips, we’ll be diving into part 3 of my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, to learn my stress-reducing, efficiency-boosting blogging process.
Since this is part 1 of the series, we’ll overview the process briefly, and then tackle the first tip.
There’s a lot to dive into, including the following:
- What is the purpose of a blog?
- How to write a blog post in six steps
- The art of writing awesome blog titles
- Make your content rich
- Be the expert
- Use an engaging image
- Keep it short (or not)!
- Create a monthly blog campaign
- What are tags & categories?
- Blog post frequency
- The freshness factor
- Original content versus duplicate content
- Your blog as a subpage versus a subdomain
- Scheduling blog posts
- The role of social media in blogging
Let’s get started by diving into the first bullet above …
What is the Purpose of a Blog?
A blog is a fantastic way for a business, individual or group to communicate with readers quickly and easily. It also offers an opportunity for readers to provide instant feedback in a virtual venue, creating a two-way conversation.
Blogs were originally called “web logs,” and they’ve redefined how we communicate online. Blogs have also altered the very fabric of the marketing model, moving us away from a selling philosophy to an era of building relationships.
In a nutshell, building relationships is the purpose of a blog.
How blogs build relationships — the content marketing model
Blogs have altered the very fabric of the marketing model, moving us away from a selling philosophy (thank goodness) and into an era of content marketing, which is a fancy term for building relationships.
As you build relationships, your readers will continue to come back to your blog — and they’ll tell their friends or associates about you. Once you’ve become their trusted source for what you do, you’ve gained a customer and a brand advocate.
As mentioned earlier, a blog can go a long way toward making you a trusted, relevant resource. And although an occasional “soft” call-to-action
on your blog is totally fine, an outright sales pitch is a sure-fire way to ruin your chances of developing a healthy, long-term relationship with your readers.
So instead of the old-fashioned sales pitch many of us were subjected to growing up, use your blog to share rich, relevant, benefit-driven and insightful content — while asking for NOTHING in return. This is one of the best ways to develop relationships online (and in the analog world, too).
— Excerpt from, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, Part 3, Chapter 8, pp. 224
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