Have a Blog Only a Mother Could Love?
Bloggers are a lot like mothers. We put our hearts and souls into our blogs and want them to succeed. But the problem is that often we’re too close to them to see obvious errors that hold them back from reaching their full potential.
Sound like your blog? If so, here are eleven mom-inspired tips to transform your blog into something your target audience will love forever.
- Sit up straight. Just as good posture helps your body, give your blog a platform on which to grow. Like leaving home, there’s a time to put your blog on it’s own domain. In other words move off of WordPress.com and Blogger.com. Get your own URL and self-host WordPress. Think about your blog’s name and how your target readers will think about it. Is it something people can spell or is it confusing? Can they type it easily?
- Eat your vegetables. Integrate appropriate blog plugins to make your blog more effective. Like the way spinach provides vitamins. Not sure what to select, here’s a list of twenty useful plugins, even if you’re not a geek. In addition, leverage the search benefits of blogging to help your content get found. This means focusing each post on one or two keyword phrases.
- Clean up your room. Instead of picking up your toys and dirty clothes, think in terms of blog design. If your blog’s still lounging in a basic theme design, you’re limiting its ability to grow. This applies to your layout and overall content presentation. Remember don’t cram so much stuff on your blog that it causes readers to leave.
- Dress your blog for success. Make you blog look distinctive. Do you want to drive readers to your blog? If so, it needs a recognizable look. Need help? Here are some tips for building you blog’s brand.
- Get the hair out of your eyes and allow readers see your face. Let readers know who you are. Include an About section along with a photograph. Present this section in line with your brand.
- Speak up so people can hear you. Create compelling content. To this end, it’s helpful to use an editorial calendar. To get readers to stop and consume your content, it’s important to have great headlines that pull them in.
- Watch your language. What mother likes foul language and poor usage? Unless it’s part of your brand like Erica Napolitano’s Redhead Ranting where readers are disappointed if she doesn’t drop an f-bomb, think about your blog’s language. Do you have a specific way you write your blog posts? Don’t underestimate the need for a copy editor or at least a second opinion. How do you incorporate photographs, videos and presentations?
- Call your mother. Like calling your mom to let her know you care, it’s important to stay in touch with your readers. Offer email and RSS delivery options. Also promote your blog on internal content venues such as on-going emailings, website and other collateral like catalogs.
- Play well with the other blogs. This translates to guest blogging where you create targeted content for other blogs, link to other blogs to reference them, and comment on other blogs.
- Share your toys with other children. Let your content socialize by making it easy for readers to share you content on social media. Alternatively, you can get permission to repost other people’s blog posts such as Business-2-Community does. (Remember: posting someone else’s content as your own is plagiarism and scraping someone’s content without permission is copyright infringement.)
- Get good grades. What mother doesn’t want her child to succeed? Similarly you want your blog to be a success relative to your goals. To that end, gather your blog’s metrics and adjust your strategy to achieve your goals.
The bottom line is that every blog can benefit from some love and care. To make your blog break through you can’t be a nag. You need to provide readers with the information they’re seeking and present it so they have confidence in you.
What would you add to this list and why?
Happy Mothers’ Day!
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
Here are some related articles to help you.
- 11 Tactics to Optimize Your Blog.
- 3 Secrets to Being an A-List Blogger [Infographic included]
- 31 Ways to Make Your Blog Stand Out
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kryten/125710155/
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