Having a blog is somewhat of a fashion trend these days, which has both its good and its bad sides. On the one hand, the internet is so much richer with bloggers from all spheres sharing their knowledge, influence and outlook with thousands of followers. On the other hand, everybody believes they can run a successful blog which is unfortunately, not the case. In order to have a blog that gets attention and significance, some writing talent is required and more importantly, you need to know what to write about. In the world where creativity seems all but gone, it is increasingly more difficult to find fresh ideas that many people can benefit from.

If however, you’ve got a great idea what you want to write about and you’re eager to start your blog today, we’re here to help. There are some more technical steps you can take to make your blog more successful and we’ll talk about them today.

#1 – Find Your Sweet Spot and Stick to It

Finding the main topic of your blog, the one around which all other will revolve isn’t an easy task. However, it is necessary to decide what you write about and stick to it and later you can naturally expand your interests and subjects, but when you’re starting, go with one attractive topic. This will make it easier on you to determine your targeted audience, after which you’re opening the doors to thinking about what kind of tone you want your blog to have and what kind of relationship you want to establish with your readers. It all starts with finding something you’re passionate and know a lot about, because your view and your knowledge provide you with a unique perspective of the matter. Besides, if you’re not writing about something you feel strongly about, why write at all?

#2 – Don’t Forget about Your SEO

Search engine optimization is something that should very much preoccupy you if you want to see your blog gaining more and more readers every day. You need to be SEO-savvy when it comes to incorporating keywords into your blog post, both when it comes to the title and the body of the text. One other crucial thing is link building, because if you produce high-quality content that proves to be useful, more top-ranking sites will be interested in sharing your blog posts and your links with their vast community. If you want to get a clear picture of how good your blog’s ranking is, just use a VPN or incognito browsing mode to see objectively where your blog stands in the scheme of things.

 #3 – Mingle with Other Bloggers

While running a blog will require much less live social interaction with people (good news for all the introverts out there), you will still need to nurture relations between you and other bloggers in your niche. It all starts on a healthy mentality of sharing, so for starters get in contact indirectly – by posting comments on other people’s blog posts and getting genuinely interested in furthering the communication. Don’t be the spammer who’s simply looking to promote his/her blog by cramming the blog links into every comment, but try to really contribute with what you have to say. Other bloggers will notice that you’re actually trying and will likely check out your blog and the same goes for their readers. If things go well, you can exchange links or even write guest posts for each other. Speaking of which…

#4 – Spend Some Time Writing Guest Posts

As we mentioned, if things go well with you making good connections with fellow bloggers, you can invite them to write a guest post for your blog and more often than not, they will invite you to do the same. This is an excellent opportunity for promotion and one you shouldn’t take lightly, because you have some new readers to razzle-dazzle. The more you write guest posts concerning certain topics, the more will your reputation grow on the grounds of you being a very good source of information in your niche. Then organically, more and more people will turn to your blog and to your opinions and voila, your blog will become more successful every day.

#5 – Make Your Content Easy to Share

You need social media buttons on your blog and you need them now. Social networks have become essential in promoting anything and everything, so you want to give your readers every opportunity to share your writing with the world. Incorporate buttons for sharing on Twitter or Facebook, and if your blog is more visual, then add that Instagram icon there too, it can’t hurt. You should use any tool that can positively promote your work and these buttons are a basic you need to have covered.

Building your blog’s reputation will require time and diligence, but it can be done and done well. Find your voice, always keep exploring what’s new and interesting in your area of expertise, produce high-quality content and keep improving yourself every day and the results will show quickly.

– By Michael Conley

Content marketing is extremely popular nowadays. Lots of brands and businesses use this online promotion strategy in order to leverage their marketing efforts and obtain impactful results. As the marketplace is constantly shifting, new mini-trends arrive, and we should definitely pay attention to them as soon as they become visible. Some people hire best writing companies that create blog posts and articles for their audience. It is an effective way of promotion, though including visual content is very important as well, because it naturally increases reach.

In the present moment, lots of successful companies choose to integrate visual content into their content marketing campaigns. This is the latest content marketing mini-trend that proves to be crucially important for nowadays companies’ results.

If we look at the numerous statistics, we can notice some interesting ones. For example, 46% of marketers state that photography pieces are critical for their content marketing campaigns. Another fact would be the fact that 34% of the interviewed marketers believe that their visual elements are the most important form of content that they use for their marketing campaigns.

During today’s article, we will analyze why visual content can improve your overall business results. As you’ll notice, there are many benefits that come with the use of this type of content:

#1- Visual Content Improves Social Engagement

If your marketing strategies involve the process of communication between you and your customers, visual content should help with this aspect. Whenever you’re adding relevant pictures, videos, and infographics, you will certainly provoke more reactions from the content consumers.

This engagement can improve many aspects of your business. When a potential customer becomes involved, he’ll most definitely focus his attention on your brand.

#2- More Readers

Researchers have found that colored visual content improves your visitor’s desire to read a specific piece of content by a stunning percentage of 80%. Imagine what that means; if you could improve the number of readers, it’s obvious that you get more chances to attract them towards your business’ products and services.

#3- Makes it Easy to Remember a Brand

It must have happened to you too. Whenever you see a new brand’s name, you’ll often forget the exact spelling. In some cases, you’ll fully forget about it, and that’s not good for that brand’s owners. It has been reported that people can only remember 10% of the information that they hear within three days.

If there’s visual content…a highly relevant picture, for example, the retention rate increases up to 65% three days later after they have consumed the information. So in order to make people remember you, make sure that you combine more types of content!

#4- Better Return on Investment

Visual content has many benefits, and one of them is the possibility of obtaining a better return on investment (ROI). The marketing campaigns that you’ll perform must drive targeted traffic towards your brand’s main website.

If you can capture your potential prospects’ attention with relevant and helpful visual content, your ROI will look better. Here’s an interesting fact: 51.9% of marketers from all over the world report that their video content is returning the best possible ROI.

#5- Your Content Can Become Viral

Any content piece can become viral as long as it provides the enough value to be worth sharing around. Did you know that humans have an actual need of sharing stuff with their close friends and to their families? Well, we can leverage that need and create exactly the type of content our social media followers would like to see and share.

Infographics, as an example, receive 3 times more shares and likes than any other type of content. Articles that contain more images receive double amounts of social shares compared to those that contain zero images. And lastly, with visual content you’re most likely to generate 40X more shares on all the social media platforms compared to content that doesn’t contain visual elements.

#6- Visual Content Sparks Human Emotions

Big companies understand human behavior. The art of selling has been extremely analyzed by professionals. Consumer psychology is the art of understanding how humans think and make decisions when they face a purchasing decision. You probably know by now that our feelings often dictate our actions and behavior.

Well, as marketers and business professionals, we can leverage this knowledge and apply its cause-and-effect factors immediately. Visual content is the best way to inflict emotions. Images, videos, infographics, and even animations speak more than a thousand words could. They’re much more impactful and valuable as a content choice than any other content forms could ever be.

#7- Increases Your Traffic, Followers, and Sales

If the visual content that you add in your marketing campaigns generate more viewers and readers for your website, it’s absolutely logical to state that your website, e-mail, and social followers’ numbers will rise. If you grow a huge followers’ database, you can expect to “capture” repeating customers that will buy your services for the long term.

It all adds up to the same thing: revenues. If you can improve your social engagement, your followers’ numbers, your strategies, and your brand’s awareness, you’ll be able to generate more revenue!

If you’re serious about staying innovative in today’s marketplace, I’d urge you to consider using visual content whenever you perform marketing campaigns. As you’ve probably understood from the facts, this type of content can make a huge impact.

You can improve your brand awareness faster, engage your loyal customers better, and earn more money in the end. Of course, in order for these tactics to work, you must dedicate long hours and work as hard as you can.