Blogging is a waste of time.
I hear it all too often with my clients. Blogging is a waste. No one ever reads my content, no one ever comments, no one cares.
I am going to give you steps that you can take in your business today to turn this around. First, you need to ask yourself why? Why are people not engaging?
There are two reasons why this might be happening: 1) no one is seeing your content or 2) your content is not engaging people to take action
If you don’t know which answer this is, then maybe you need to attach google analytics to your site, and then you will know who is viewing.
Ok, so you know that no one is seeing your content. Let me cover how I get more people to my website.
The first place for you to look for site visitors are people you know. Just ask them to visit your site, and give you some feedback. Or maybe ask them to share the site with their friends. That is one way to get a couple visitors.
Now that is only going to work a couple times, and then people will get tired of you asking. Now you need to start building lists of people who are interested in your content on your site.
A great way to build a list is first with Facebook, sign up for a Facebook fan page and start posting every day to your wall. Encourage your friends to join and promote your fan page on your website.
Now the only way to really get your fan page moving is to setup some Facebook ads to get some fans. In a future podcast I will be diving into Facebook marketing in detail, but for now know that you want to try and get a Facebook like for less than 20 cents, that should be your goal. So do the math, it will cost money to grow your page.
Then you will be able to post to your friends, and boost engagement on your posts and your website.
The same action can be taken on Twitter, Linkedin and other social media sites. My advice is to start with one social media profile, make it start working and then move onto building the next social media profile. If you try to do everything at once, then you will not be successful. Build one profile at a time so you do not spread yourself too thin.
Next, I recommend having a pop up on your site to encourage people to sign up to your email list. I build this on my WordPress sites using Mailchimp mostly because it is free, and then I use Infusionsoft for those clients who really want to get serious about marketing their business.
Then I use Ninja Popups to make the pop ups on the site, and I watch my email list grow. Each time you write a new blog post, or create new content, you can send an email to your list.
All this is awesome to get people onto your site, but here is the number 1 problem with websites, the content is bad. You have to write awesome content. If you don’t write great content, then nothing else really matters. Forget about SEO and all the other traffic strategies that I teach, if your content is bad, these strategies will not matter.
Here is how I approach a topic, I ask, what is the problem that is being solved? My next step is creating a subject line or title of the post to grab attention: a title for this post could be, simple steps to more website traffic. If you are creating an announcement for your business to post on your blog, make it exciting.
Typically, businesses that use their blog to teach about their business will be answering questions that are frequently asked. You know your business better than anyone; take the time to write some content.
It is sad that so many companies do not take their blog seriously, and they hire companies to write their blog content for them. Sure, there is a template that I can use to create content, however, if the people you are hiring do not know your audience, the content is never going to be as good as what you could write.
Know your audience and connect with them. You know what they like, and if you don’t know what they like, you need to start studying your audience.
Marketing today is not what it used to be, and it is getting more complicated. In today’s marketing strategies, you need to touch your audience 4 to 6 times before a sale can be made.
Connecting with your audience could be through email, on your website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or wherever else you have a great presence online.
Yes, the pictures you are posting to instagram and on your profiles are creating sales. Understand who your people are and what they want, carefully create the content to entertain, inform and educate; with this you will be seeding your sale.
Do not be afraid to sprinkle sell copy or call to actions in your posts, but do not overdue it and be a pushy sales person. If you truly believe that you have the best product, write about that and explain why. Show examples and do not hold back.
We briefly touched on the title, it has to be catchy and try to include your target keyword in the title. For instance, if you are targeting WordPress SEO, put those words in the title with other words like, increase traffic with WordPress SEO. Always make your titles make sense.
Next, you want the first sentence to be a summary of what you are saying in the post and what your reader will learn. This will be the hook in your article that will pull the reader through to the end. This sentence is very important to hook people in, and typically can be done with a question.
In writing your content for your blog, be sure to write no more than two sentences then break to the next line. People do not like reading paragraphs, so make it super easy and try to break up your text into bullet points.
Include sub titles, and bold text that you want them to read. Most people skim content, and if the bold text is engaging the user, they will continue reading more. So make your text edgy and straight to the point.
Here is where it is important to understand your audience. If they are frustrated about something, you need to lead them down the pain funnel, and then show them how your product solves this issue.
If you have ever seen an infomercial, you know how this works. Tired of this and this and this? Have you ever this and this and this? Introducing this, the this and this and this.
Just fill in the blanks with your pain and then show how you are solving this with your business. These types of articles are so much better than announcements for your business. Don’t get me wrong, announcements are great, but also create posts on your blog that are solving problems.
Know your audience, know what they want, know what frustrates them, and solve their problems with your products and services. That is how to create content that is valuable.
Content is truly king, and by matching up your product with solving frustrations, you will find that people will start buying products through your blog. So make it easy to get to your product pages, and hyperlink to your product pages from your blog.
Also, make social sharing easy for your blog. By the way, if you need help with any of this, email me at MattGanzak.com/connect or you can reach me on my Facebook Fan Page.
Building momentum for your site and your online presence takes time, a lot of time. There is no shortcut, unless you want to use ad dollars to grow your traffic. If you want to get more traffic for free, it just takes time. You can grow a huge network of websites like I have, and thousands of fans, it is possible. It just takes time.
So take your time and do it right. Create awesome content that solves your customers problems, and don’t hold back. Connect with your customers and learn who they are, what they want, and what their frustrations are. Armed with that knowledge, you can connect with your audience and give them content they will engage with.
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Working together we can create online success, and I am dedicated to helping you create your success. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with, so be sure to connect on my Facebook fan page, and do not hesitate to drop me a message.
Thank you for listening, and I will see you on the next podcast!
