How To Write A Better Blog
The secret to writing a great blog is to keep the content focused on what interests your readers.
There is no variation of that which can work for you.
No matter what message you want to send, you have to ask and re-ask: “What part of this will interest my customers and my potential customers?”
For example, if you run a Farmer’s Market and your website contains key information about opening hours, location, contact information, number of vendors and a story of how you all came together to promote local growers, that is all good and useful content.
But it won’t delight your readers and keep them coming back.
But if every week you add a market report about what is in season and will be available at your market (and perhaps even the price), you will be amazed at the traffic you start to build. Let your readers know when the new potatoes are on the shelves, that the rhubarb crop was great this year, and that the local blueberries are in stock. That’s is what they need to know and what keeps them returning week after week.
Let’s say you run a blog every Thursday that contains this kind of information for your weekend market, but you want to touch base with your customers more than once a week (which is an excellent idea). On Tuesdays, you start to offer heritage family recipes from the vendors featuring the crops that are in season.
You will create a whole new level of interest and sharing and comments from your readers.
They will start to share that content. If they make the recipe and it turns out great and delights their loved ones, they will share these heart-warming stories too. They will tell their friends where they got the recipe and still more people will arrive to check out your site.
How do you build on a formula that is already working?
You start to add special features.
As special seasons approach like long summer weekends, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, etc., you might add a video of a cooking tutorial with a local cook making a spectacular special season food. Post in on your website, have the link in your blogs, and put it on YouTube. Your readership goes to a new level.
You might also create a series of White Papers or special reports about how to grow common fruits and vegetables specific to your geographic area, or how to deal with gardening issues as well as to encourage others to engage in growing and appreciating local food.
At the end of the year, about two months before the holiday season, you offer a free downloadable garden calendar with key market dates and other relevant information about planting times, when certain crops are likely to appears, etc. You could even print it and sell it using a PayPal app. Dozens and dozens more readers get on board.
You could put everything together in an e-book to be downloaded and offer it as New Year’s offering or something to draw in more readers in April, just before the full growing season gets into gear.
If you take this kind of growth formula and apply it to your business, you will see that it fits regardless of what your service or product is.
Make sure that all the content you create is mobile friendly, since more and more people are reading blogs via their smart phone.
Study great content from blogs you enjoy, and watch their progression into more and more value to readers.
At the end of the day, weigh everything you are creating against your business purpose and vision.
Paula Morand is a leadership building, revenue boosting, strategy expanding keynote speaker, author and visionary. This dreaming big and being bold leadership expert and brand strategist brings her vibrant energy, humor and wisdom to ignite individuals, organizations and communities to lead change, growth and impact in a more bold fashion. 24 years, 27,000 clients, 34 countries, 15 books, former radio personality, 11x award winning entrepreneur and humorous emcee.
Check out Paula’s best selling books: “Bold Courage: How Owning Your Awesome Changes Everything”, “Dreaming BIG and Being BOLD: Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers” book series; and due to be released December 6th “Bold Vision: A Leader’s Playbook for Managing Growth” go to Amazon http://ow.ly/i8yW307ix67
Speaking inquiries email bookings@paulamorand.com or call toll-free 1-888-502-6317.