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Why We Blog, How We Blog and Whom We Blog

 

Too many people have dismissed the power of blogging because they just don’t see the point. Then there are others who also don’t see the point, but blog anyway because they heard it was good for biz.

And then there are those who know exactly why they blog, how they blog, what they blog and whom they blog to; thus rendering their blogging efforts more effective and productive.

So why do we blog?… It’s kind of hard to get into something and do it right if we don’t really understand why and how we’re doing it. Well, there are several very worthwhile reasons why we blog as well as key principles to the “what”, “how” and “who” of blogging that I will discuss here, which will help ignite a stronger sense of purpose and passion for a more fruitful blogging endeavor.

7 Reasons Why We Blog

  • Personal Branding  Fundamental to any pursuit, is the meaning and purpose that drives it, so it is imperative to define and clarify your endeavor. Equally important is communicating who you are as a person and what you’re about so to exemplify a unique selling point about what it is that differentiates you from your competition. Blogging is a medium that enables you to communicate these things by establishing a platform that helps you position yourself as a distinct expert, all while demonstrating authenticity with your unique personality. See more about branding in 7 Pillars to Building an Online Presence

  • Free Traffic   In a time when paid traffic is getting much more expensive, free traffic is an appealing source to leverage. But many website owners do not know how to drive this kind of traffic to there site. Blogging is the life-blood of free traffic, and if done with effective strategy, this traffic can be quite targeted.

  • Content Archive   Content creation is an evergreen information-age marketing method that has a wide variety of uses. Building an archive of quality content is an important component in establishing you and your website as a valuable resource. Each piece of content, whether it be a blog post, video, article, etc, is an asset that can be used and reused for different purposes, such as-  information products, reference catalog, SEO strategy, social media strategy, email marketing and so on. See  10 Tips On Creating Compelling Content

  • Delivering Value   Coming from a position of genuine value is the best way, and really the only legit way to run an enterprise. Blogging on a frequent basis is a great way to deliver value that keeps your visitors and customers coming back for fresh and valuable updates. See The Proliferating Effect of Delivering Value and Generosity

  • Interaction   Blogging frequently also creates an interactive dynamic with your visitors that facilitates in building better relationships as well as recognition by search engines. Comment dialogue and social signals such as Facebook “Likes” or “Shares”, or Twitter “Tweets” are some of the community elements of blogging that keeps your site alive and vibrant.

  • Authority   Publishing valuable content establishes your authority in your field which can set you apart from your competition and help get you in front of your target audience.

  • Refining Your Expertise   If nothing else, blogging will cause you to think more deeply about what you are doing and what is so special about what you have to offer. A diligent blogger will increase the value of their expertise by doing more research, taking deeper analysis, staying current, improving articulation & presentation and becoming more grounded in their field.

So now lets talk about strategy
Now that we see why we blog, the next thing to consider is how we blog. Implementing some strategy with your blogging will fuel your content with better mileage. Certainly, you must have quality content, but without some strategy, your content may not go very far. Below is a list of certain strategies that can be used to optimize your content exposure.

  • Keyword Research Strategy   Finding the right phrase of words which is relevant to your topic, then crafting your content around these keywords-  is basic keyword strategy. These keywords should have high search volume, but low-to-moderate competition. See Keyword Research Basics

  • Social Media Strategy   Engaging with people in a natural and nonthreatening way with good social tact on the premise of genuine respect for people are some of the basic ingredients for effective social media strategy. Wielding some of the special community features like groups and specialized pages can go a long way, but most important is practicing good human relation skills.   See Social Media Etiquette and Online Humane Relations Defined

  • Link Strategy  The permalink is the URL address of your blog posts, which should reflect the title. Internal links are the those that link to other posts on your site. Anchor text  is a clickable text in a hyperlink- like those you see in the past three sentences. Outbound links is when you link to other websites as a reference.  Backlinks , or inbound links, are when other websites refer to your site by linking back to it; which will only happen if you have quality content.

  • Quality Content   With the amount of noise on the web today, there is an even greater need to deliver valuable content that is captivating and thought provoking. There’s a multitude of distractions and diversions competing for the attention of our prospective audience, so creating compelling content is very worthwhile.   See  Creating Compelling Content

  • Community Blogs   Leveraging the power of a community website of other bloggers is quite an effective way to gain greater exposure to your content, as well as getting ranked at the top of search results for even more exposure. The better your content, the more likely you will qualify for a high authority community site.

  • Syndication Tribes   This is another type of community strategy that multiplies your exposure by having a group of people who circulate each others content

  • SEO Plugins   Optimize your search results with plugins like “All in One SEO Pack”, “Ultimate Tag Warrior” and “BWP Google XML Sitemaps”

Who are we blogging to?
So we’ve seen why we blog and how we blog; now lets look at whom we blog. Attempting to be all things to all people is a nice sentiment, but it generally doesn’t go very far in the market place unless you have mega-resources for a massively diverse product line. Targeting a niche-market is the best way to go, so here are a few items to consider when identifying your target audience:

  • Determine the demographic profile of your target audience: Age, gender, interest, marital status, education, income, etc.
  • Determine the values of your target audience: Interest, lifestyle, venues they shop, choices they make, etc.
  • Determine how you will reach and interact with your target audience: Where will you find them? How will they will benefit from your products/services? How will your transaction go? etc.
  • Determine the demand of your target audience: Are their needs and desires being met? Does their current products and services have deficiencies? What is the competition like?
  • Conduct market research based on the profile determined: Online market research, offline research such as Chamber of Commerce, personally interviewing your target audience, looking up surveys and studies, doing your own survey and study, etc.

By now, we should have a better idea of why we blog, how we blog and whom we blog. With all things considered, there can be a lot of work that goes into blogging, but be careful to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Not every blog post has to be a monumental piece of content. Sometimes keeping it short, simple and sweet is the best way to update your site.  Setting reasonable goals and taking one step at a time is a good way to go- and remember to let your personality shine and have fun!

Happy blogging! 🙂

 


 

 

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Written by Scott Yonker