If you have a blog, there are several things you can do to make sure that your posts will be successful and reach a large audience. What you don’t want to do is make mistakes to kill your blog posts.
Headlines
A blog headline is the first thing that visitors will see when they’re on your blog is the headline. It’ll also come up in search engine results, subject lines, when you post it on social media accounts, etc. You don’t want to create something that sounds cute or is simply confusing.
The main idea is to catch readers’ attention and pull them in. You want them to feel like they’re going to benefit from your blog post, so you should use smart, unique headlines to make them want to read more. You can have headlines unique, very specific, helpful, urgent or a combination of them.
Linking
If you’re not linking to your older blog posts, you won’t drive traffic to them, and they’ll just sit there without anyone visiting them. If you wrote a blog post in the past, you did because you thought the information was valuable. You shouldn’t just forget about it once you’ve posted it.
Linking to Bloggers
If you’re not linking to other bloggers, you won’t bring them into the conversation. You are able to give reach other ideas and suggestions that can be helpful. You’re also giving them credit for their post that you’re writing on. Linking also helps you have a higher impact in search rankings.
Page Title and Description Fields
If you’re not filling out the title and description fields for each blog post, you’re not helping when search engines crawl and index your site. It’s also important to use the proper keywords so that the search engines know what each post is about.
URLs
You want your URLs to be easy to read by users and by search engines. If they’re clunky or too long, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. You want to include keywords in your URLs. This will help your SEO.
Publishing
If you’re not publishing blogs on a regular basis, then your content won’t gain any traction. It’s important to constantly be posting new, helpful blog posts at least once a month. The more you post, the more traffic you drive to your site. If you’re not going to post regularly, then there really is no point in blogging. Sure, sometimes you’re too busy to post every day or it’s a slow news day, but do the best you can to post constantly.
Social Media
If you have a blog, you should also be on social media sites. It’s the best way to leverage your content. By posting to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. you’ll allow a larger audience to access your blog posts. It also allows your content to be shared through retweets, shares, etc.
Comments
Readers should be leaving comments on your blog posts. At the end of your blog posts, ask them a question like what else they would do regarding a topic or what they would do differently. Everyone has a suggestion or comment, so if you give readers a chance to comment your posts, you’ll start to form a relationship with them.
Topic Choice
It’s important that you’re writing about a topic that your readers will find interesting or beneficial. If you’re not, then that’s your first mistake. You have several blogs you’re competing with, so you want your content to be creative and interesting in order to have a successful blog.