Blogs are widely accepted as a key part of any business’ online presence. With the huge range of free— or at least very cheap— blogging platforms, you can set up a blog in minutes. But creating a ‘buzz’ for your blog is another matter— it’s notoriously difficult to attract readers who will engage with your content.

It’s a common misconception that perseverance alone is enough to build you a following— but blogging religiously is only part of the battle.

With that in mind, here are 4 golden rules to make all that writing worthwhile.

 1.    BE VALUABLE:

Give your readers something useful to read!

Good content is the absolute key to the success of any blog. No matter how often you’re posting, if your content doesn’t grab someone’s attention, your blog will never gain any traction.

For people to spend time reading your posts, your blog needs to be of use to your audience. That’s not to say you need to be revealing the meaning of existence in every post— you don’t! But it’s crucial that what you’re writing has some value to your reader.

There are plenty of ways to do this. For example, a  ‘top tips’ list or a ‘how-to’ is a classic way of giving your audience something that they feel they can use. If they feel they’re benefiting from your advice, they’re likely to return to read again.

Giving readers a look ‘behind the scenes’ can be a way to get readers interested— offering a glimpse of something they don’t normally have access to, while at the same time showing off the workings of your business.

You can also try writing posts on issues relevant to your audience— readers interested in interior design, for example, might also have an interest in art. Travellers might have an interest in world news. Broadening the range of topics you cover on your blog will keep it fresh for returning reader, as well as letting them know that you’re a source of information on the subjects they’re interested in.

 2. USE PARAGRAPHS:

This might seem like a very small thing, but realistically speaking, paragraphs are the key to getting your audience to read right to the end of your posts— and making sure that all that valuable content you’ve written doesn’t go to waste.

Readers have a short attention span and can be put off by long, unbroken walls of text— whereas, on the other hand, even the longest blog can be made more readable by breaking it into paragraphs of three or four lines at a time.

Paragraphs make your blog much easier to digest. For maximum effectiveness, group your short paragraphs together under relevant headings.

Doing this means that if readers are skimming your blog for information, they’re more likely to find what they’re looking for— and, because they’ve found your blog useful, they’re much more likely to come back and read it again.

3.    USE IMAGES: 

Images can make a huge difference to your blog!

Given how effective images are at increasing engagement, they should form a critical part of your blog. Images are useful for increasing interest from readers because they turn what might have been a bland wall of text into something much more distinctive.

Well-chosen images can be used to illustrate the subject of your post— from stages of a step-by-step guide to images of places or people that have inspired a design. Giving readers a visual reference for what you’re writing about can help keep their attention focused on your content, without overwhelming them.

As a general rule when choosing images for your blog, make sure to use high-quality images that will reflect well on the image of your business: a low-quality or pixelated image can be just as bad, if not worse, than a post with no visuals at all.

4. ENCOURAGE ENGAGEMENT:

Follow buttons can be embedded into your blog

Blogs are a great tool for increasing awareness of your business, if you can encourage readers to share your posts. To do this, it’s vital that you make it as easy as possible for anyone reading your blog to share it with others.

It’s easy to add ‘share’ buttons to blog posts, allowing readers to share them instantly to social media sites such as Twitter of Facebook. You can also embed buttons, which allow readers to follow your business’ social media accounts. These not only encourage people to share your content to others who might find it relevant, but encourage readers to interact with you on other networks and invest more personally in you as a business.

Also key to your blog’s success is your commenting system: readers want to know that you value their opinion, so allowing them to have their say is essential. As well as this, try to reply to comments left on your post: this shows that you value your readers and want to engage in a dialogue.

Don’t expect your blog to be flooded with comments straight away— it’s difficult to get people to comment on blogs, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.

To encourage people to respond to your blog— either in your comments section or on social media— try ending your posts with a question. Ask if your readers agree or disagree with what you’ve written, if there’s anything you’ve missed, or just how they feel about your topic.

THE BARE NECESSITIES

Making sure that your blog follows all these simple rules will instantly make your posts much more reader-friendly, and open the door to future blogging success.

But these are just our unbreakable laws— what are yours?

By Moya Vaughan Evans