Now that 2017 started a few days ago, it’s time to look at how we can improve our company blogs moving forward into this new year. What will this new year bring for your blog and your business?
Below we offer five ways you can improve your blog moving powerfully in 2017.
Let’s jump in!
1. Ask What Worked Well
Even if you feel like your blog was a total failure back in 2016, you still probably had a few successes you could learn from.
Set aside a few minutes and ask yourself: what worked well in 2016?
Write down your successes, no matter how small. Did you have a post that received a hundred social shares? Did a certain style of post result in more comments than usual? Did you receive a large number of email sign-ups from a specific post?
To grow your blog you need to be constantly experimenting. Take note of the little things that worked last year, so you can make sure to do more of it this year.
2. Poll Your Audience
Not quite sure about which direction to take your blog this year? How about asking your audience.
If you have a social media following, an email list, or even an active comment section on your blog, consider asking them what topics they’d like you to cover.
This will help to take the stress off generating ideas completely from scratch and point you in the direction of creating content that will address a pressing need your audience has.
By orienting your blog around serving your customers, not just promoting your work, you’ll be able to build a richer relationship with your readers.
3. Set Smart, Measurable, and Achievable Goals
The only goals that you can actually achieve are measurable goals that are actually achievable. Now, it is possible to grow your revenue 500% from blogging alone, but that depends upon the size of your audience and content marketing skills.
The best place to start is with a little bit of honesty. Look at where you’re at currently and create a map of very specific goals you’d like to achieve.
You can use a few of the goals below as inspiration:
- I want to publish at least 1 insanely useful post every single week.
- I want to grow my email list by 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year.
- I want to publish 6 guest posts on popular blogs by the end of the year.
- I want to create a compelling eBook lead magnet.
Once you’ve set your goals, then make an actionable plan for achieving them. Setting goals is only half the battle. You need a plan that will help to guide you every step of the way.
4. Define Your Focus
When we’re wrapped up in writing posts for our blogs it’s easy to become lost and forget why we’re doing this thing in the first place.
Without our readers our blogs aren’t really doing anything. They’re more like a personal journal that lives online.
Make sure you find a way to consistently connect to the reasons you’re actually doing this thing.
Are you blogging to educate your readers? Improve their lives? Inspire them to take action, grow their businesses, improve their relationships?
Great content is service-oriented, so make sure you get outside of yourself and determine what kind of impact you’re going for.
5. Stick to a Schedule
Blogging is a long-term investment. Whether you’re trying to build a readership, grow your audience, or get more search engine traffic, you’re going to have to expand your thinking.
Some of the most practical advice we can give is to keep at it. Determine what publishing schedule will work best for you and stick with it.
Publishing on a consistent basis will help you refine your perspective, give your readers something to look forward to, and give you a lot more data to analyze and move forward with.
Need some help with your content marketing into the new year? Then reach out to our creative team today.
