Some people still believe blogging is reserved for writers and authors who want to share their ideas with the world, but they don’t realize that blogs represent an important business tool. According to the research, around 60% of online consumers in the US have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.

In such circumstances, it is not the question of whether to create your own blog but how to do it most effectively. It’s a complex process that requires a lot of time and efforts, but you can handle it if you follow a few basic principles.

Assess Your Audience

Before you actually start developing a blog page, you need to research and analyze the target audience. The point is to find out as much as possible about your average followers and what they want to read and learn from you. You should discover their basic traits:

Location: Where they live and hang out.

Age and gender: You don’t write the same way for high school kids or for seniors.

Education: The same goes for people with different academic backgrounds.

Income level: You need to know what kind of products to promote. Premium or cheaper items?

Personal values: Your style of writing depends on the overall values and beliefs of your followers.

Once you’ve learned everything there is to know about the reader’s persona, you should create a long list of keyword-based topics. Your job is to explain each subject, answer important questions, and solve customers’ problems.

Launch a Website

Now that you know who to write for, you have to develop a website. First of all, you don’t want to use one of those free platforms. Although it may seem like a good thing at first, it will cost you more than a premium version in the long run because you’ll have to keep upgrading your blog.

Candace Green, a web designer at EssayWritingLand, explained another important feature: “Besides a good platform, you need an attractive domain name that perfectly reflects the nature of your blog. Keep in mind that blog names are supposed to last for a long time, so you want to choose something that stands the test of time”.

Make sure you have a reliable domain extension like .com or .net. The average user is not willing to open suspicious websites, so you need to make sure that your blog looks credible in the eyes of the future visitors.

Set Goals

You don’t do business blogging just for fun. On the contrary, it really is a business sui generis and you need to set goals that you want to reach. There are all sorts of objectives: from raising brand awareness and lead generation to self-branding and increasing conversion rates.

In each case, you have to publish content regularly so that followers know what and when to expect from you as the author. Average blog readers develop certain expectations regarding post frequency and quality, so you need to indulge them even if you are on vacation and have to work remotely.

If you publish three posts a week, don’t break the rule. But if you can’t make more than one good post a week, stick to this rhythm. Using tools like Google Calendar, you can make a sustainable schedule and prevent unpleasant surprises both for you and your audience.

Create High-Quality Content

This is by far the most important success factor of any business blog. If you want to attract readers and form a solid base of loyal followers, you need to create high-quality content.

It means your posts have to be analytical and cover topics from all angles. You need to present readers with the most influential opinions in the niche, solve their issues, and give suggestions on how to use products or overcome problems.

This is the reason why blog posts are getting longer over time. A decade ago, most people would be satisfied with short and simple articles, but now the ideal blog post length is around 1.6 thousand words. If you can fulfill quality standards, you can become a key opinion leader in your industry and eventually expect a big spike in blog traffic.

Use Multimedia Content

Bloggers traditionally rely on textual content, but multimedia is getting stronger year after year. This means you need to add multimedia elements to your posts in order to keep pace with competitors. For example, blog posts with images reportedly get 94% more views than text-only articles.

Besides images, there are many other multimedia features to add to your posts. Videos traditionally make a big impact on blog popularity, but you can also use infographics, surveys, quizzes, audio recordings, or Gifs. Each one of these formats could make your blog more attractive, so don’t be afraid to seize the opportunity whenever you notice it.

Promote Your Blog

Even the most proficient authors need to promote their blogs in order to reach wider audiences. You should apply the same tactics, particularly in terms of social media promotion. Social platforms gather more than 2 billion daily active users, which means you can probably find the target audience on Facebook and similar networks.

Of course, you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. It’s enough to use one or two platforms where your followers hang out the most. For instance, LinkedIn is a convenient option if you are aiming at B2B clients, but it’s not the ideal choice in case you are targeting high school kids. It’s up to you to do the research and select the best options for your blog.

Measure Results

After everything you’ve done so far, the only thing left is to measure the results of your blog. Google Analytics will give you all the answers you need, so you can easily find out if you are able to reach targeted objectives. Besides that, you will use these inputs to adjust and improve your blog, making it more attractive for the average reader.

Get Started

Blogging is one of the most profitable channels of content marketing. A well-designed blog has the power to raise brand awareness and increase customer loyalty, so you definitely need to add it to the overall marketing strategy.

Do you have other interesting suggestions to share with our readers? Don’t hesitate to let us know in comments and we’ll be glad to discuss this topic with you!

Guest blogger: Paula Hicks is an experienced journalist from Romania. She currently lives in the United States and works as a freelance editor for a number of educational resources. Her big dream is to open a publishing house in Europe. Follow her at @paulaahicks.

7 Steps to Create a Successful Business Blog