Having a regularly updated blog for your business is a wonderful way to attract and maintain a customer base. To get the most out of your blog, the page should be informative, engaging, and easy to read. Here are four features of an effective blog.
1. Caters To Its Audience
When you have a blog, you want to be able to grab your readers’ attention right away. If you have no idea who your readers are, you won’t be able to write useful or engaging content. If you are not sure who buys your products or services, make use of website analytics or short surveys to gauge who comprises your audience. Some items that you want to know about your readers include:
- Who they are
- What interests they have
- What products or services they are looking for
- When they might search for the blog
Whether your business writes its own blog or uses a blog subscription service, having a demographic profile of your likely readers allows you to cater your blog to them. For example, if you write about cooking and your target audience lives in a specific region of the country, you can tailor the ingredients you use to things that are local to that region.
2. Is Integrated With Other Marketing
The blog for your business should match the tone of its other marketing outlets, whether that includes social media sites, television advertisements, or monthly emails sent to customers, without being repetitive. If possible, mention these outlets on your blog and mention the blog in the other marketing outlets. When you have a similar tone and style throughout your marketing channels, your brand will benefit by becoming:
- Easily recognizable
- Regarded as professional and well-maintained
- Known as an industry expert
Improve consistency and drive traffic to your other media outlets by integrating those with your blog.
3. Has Regular Posts
How often you update your blog is highly dependent on your goals and the demographics of your readers. For example, a blog focused on providing nutrition and fitness advice might want to post two or three times a week so readers can incorporate the advice into their lifestyle and stay motivated, while a blog dedicated to time-consuming home improvement projects would get away with posting much less often. A tech-savvy audience might appreciate more frequent posts than an audience that is less inclined to spend hours of their day on the internet.
Regardless of how often you post, make sure that the posts are regular and consistent. For example, try to avoid going a month without posting any content and then start posting several times per day, as this makes your business look unreliable. One exception would be if there was a change in your company that warrants this adjustment in the frequency of blog posts.
4. Is Easy To Read
Nothing is less inviting to read than a wall of text or numerous grammatical errors. In addition to ensuring that you avoid these mistakes, there are other ways to make your page inviting, such as:
- Avoiding clutter and making good use of white space
- Using headers of a different font size or color than the main text
- Breaking up your text with numbered lists or bullet points
- Adding photos, charts, or videos throughout the content, when appropriate
An effective blog post should be thorough enough for someone who wants to learn more about a topic and read the entire post, but laid out in a way that makes it easy for someone to skim the post.
Consider these four features of an effective blog if you are looking for a fun new way to promote your business on the internet.
