not sure how to start your blogging for business growth maybe you're worried that your blogs aren't reader friendly today let's go over five of the most important elements that you should be adding to your box hi everyone it's leanne cohen's here digital success coach and owner of the marketing agency marketing league today we are talking about five elements that you should be using when it comes to your blogs as i mentioned last week one of the most consistent aspects of marketing over the last several years or since actually the internet has been around is blogging and a lot of marketers and business owners use this in their marketing strategy because it actually works when it comes to running a business blogging is a really critical element yeah there's roughly you know 409 million internet users that read about 200 billion blog pages every single month the reason that they do that is purely because of the content and because they get to learn more information about something that they're searching for about a particular service or about a particular problem that they might have over the last five years vlogging has still continued to increase with more and more people getting online and searching in my previous video last week i talked about the six key benefits of marketing your blog today we're going to talk about blogging tips for beginners and how you can start adding these elements to your blog so the first thing you need to do is have engaging images like that saying your picture is worth a thousand words images actually help your readers better understand your content visitors will more likely choose to read or click on a blog with an image that is engaging and compelling to them especially if they've come from social media social media has done a lot to change the way that we engage online the way that we read things and how we actually interact photos also break up text and give readers a chance to absorb the information that is being presented to them and i'll just give you a really quick overview here so you can see this is a blog that we did recently about creating content that resonates with your audience there is people that are engaged around a laptop and when you go further down you'll see that the content is actually broken up with images and what that does is that just helps the eye and it gives them a chance to absorb the information that's being presented to them another good reason to actually add images is the fact that google's visual search is incredibly important naming your images the right way because google obviously can't read an image but having it named the right way goes a really long way to showing up in search especially if you have the keywords in the name of that particular image we find time and time again when we're running reports for clients that image search and and people searching and finding images online is one of the key elements of actually driving traffic to their website so when you have high quality optimized images your images can actually rank first when people are searching for you the second thing is to have a clean responsive design and layout again a lot of people are doing things on mobile making sure that it is responsive and that it is a really clean layout is really important quality content and good design are the top two factors that will actually add credibility to your blog the next thing is readability in order for visitors to actually appreciate what you're writing about your design actually has to emphasize the words rather than distracting away and it is also really important to note that there are different types of readers so if we just jump back over to this blog again you will actually see that as well as having images this blog is actually broken up with a header two ahead of threes as well as bullet points links going backwards and forwards so the reason that we do this is because there are three main types of reader so the first one is the skimmer and the skimmer will do just that they will skin the article so they won't read everything word for word because they're in a hurry they'll only stay on your blog for a short period of time and they've sort of developed the skill of being able to get the gist of of what you're talking about just by by skimming through so i'll go through and one of the most important things is actually having headlines so having headlines having bullet points makes it easier for the skimmer to go through and see exactly what it is okay this is what the blog's about okay i've got the understanding of what the content is telling me one thing that will actually help them stay on here a lot longer is by adding different types of reading so you can see here we've got you know watch the video below the minute you click on that that will actually take you down to the videos underneath if you have audio content you can actually have the audio going in there as well because then what that does is that actually takes that keeps them on your blog for longer if they're skimming but you know they're quite happy to have audio playing while they're doing something else or they're wanting to actually you know watch a video then that's a really great way of engaging them the second one is the scanner now scanner is very very similar to skimming but the scanner actually goes through the content because they're looking for something specific so specific data specific facts so again having bullet points having headers make it really easy for them to find what they're looking for these readers will actually read the first sentence of each section that you have there and have a look at the images and then that's basically about it for these guys having an faq now faqs are also really good for seo but you're having a frequently asked questions or even just article summary boxes so this makes it easy for the scanner to go through see exactly what it is that they're looking for you know they can click on the faqs if it's exactly what they're looking for then they can use that content having really good images and having embedded videos makes a really really big difference as well and if you're embedding from youtube every time somebody watches a video on your blog or on your website that actually adds towards your watch count on youtube so it's a win-win for both times both ways now the third way is the sponge the sponge is what's also known as the intensive reader and these guys will actually go through and read every single word of your post they stay on your blog the longest out of the other all three of them and they really try to understand where it is you're coming from and what you're saying nine times out of ten they're on there because they want to learn something or they're avoid readers and they just read for enjoyment which is that's something that i do sponges and intensive readers tend to be detail orientated you're making sure that you're grammatically correct making sure that what you're saying makes sense is so important quite often they will share comments they'll share their opinion or they might even message you and tell you that you're missing a word or you've misspelled something or the punctuation's not quite right so making sure that you have your blogs laid out in such a way that will speak to all three readers it widens your audience when it comes to people that are going to read your blog and of course you've got to make sure that your blog is optimized for both desktop and mobile views and that's why having it nicely spaced out having lots of white space translates really well onto mobile and it just makes it easier for people to read now the third thing that you need to keep in mind is developing your unique voice as i said with the amount of blogs that are out there and the amount of reading that people are doing again you know you're looking at your 20 billion blog pages that are being read every single month so it is really important that you find your unique voice it invites people to read it makes them feel comfortable they actually start looking forward to the blogs that are coming out because they're learning something or you're entertaining them so there's a couple of ways that you can develop your unique voice you have to write conversationally so as if you're talking to them use simple words and don't use fluff it's like people that get on and do a live video and do the whole hello oh you know give me a thumbs up and you know they waste your time for a couple of minutes before they get into what they're talking about your blogs are exactly the same way you've got to use simple words you've got to cut out the fluff and get straight to the point use short sentences now this is also really good for seo and will actually help you with your seo rankings and you've got to make sure that your expertise and your unique perspective is actually showing through and then making sure that by now you should have your e-messages and your and your particular messaging mapped out if you don't comment below we'll have a chat and get that sorted for you but making sure that you're using your messaging and your key phrases throughout the blog is really intense it is really essential so quite often you know when i'm talking or when i'm doing a blog i will talk about losing the marketing overwhelm i will talk about drowning and overwhelm or you know simply springboarding to success because they're key phrases that marketing leap is being recognized for make sure that you are using your unique voice when it comes to blogging the fourth thing is to connect to social media and connect with social media it's all well and good doing a blog but you've got to put it out there so people can see exactly what it is that you are doing so you connect your blog to multiple social media outlets such as facebook and twitter that will actually increase traffic to your site quite dramatically you can add press it down and put the highlighted key points in as an article on linkedin and what we quite often do is we will actually put a link in the relevant video caption on youtube as well so you know one of the main key benefits of blogging is to develop better customer relationships the whole idea is to encourage discussions and share knowledge if you're putting it out on social media your readers can actually comment and they can actually take part in that conversation the fifth and probably most important thing is the call to action and one of my favorite sayings is that people are silently begging to be led you've got to make sure that you've got a call to action which is basically telling people a particular step that you want them to take or something that that you want them to download and i'll give you show you what that looks like here as well so you know the fact that you've you've provided all this really important valuable information the next thing is you've got to ask them if they want to sign up for a newsletter so you can see here we've got a subscription here you could ask them if they want to download something if they want to learn something if they want to book a call with you this is a link through to one of the other blogs that's keeping people on the website longer but with the call to action you're actually going through and if you've got a special offer you can pop it at the bottom so you're literally giving people options of how they can connect with you how they can work with you you know how they can stay engaged so make sure that your call to action is relevant to the content of your blog again you've got to give people the option to connect with you and work with you those are the five key elements or most important elements that you should be adding into your blog engaging images having a clean responsive design and layout then also making sure that you are writing and speaking with your unique voice using your messaging and your key phrases connect with social media give people the option to comment and share and engage with you and then finally make sure that you have a call to action so you're giving people the option to work with you you're letting people know how they can engage with you further so i hope that has been of some value to you today you know if you've got any questions or you simply want to chat please comment below or send me a direct message if you're not sure how any of this works i'm here to help if you've got questions just comment below and hopefully i'll be able to give you the answers because this is essentially what we do for our clients so blogging is one element and one service that we do offer and we do also offer a complete range of realistic practical marketing solutions that will actually help deliver results for your business and help you grow your business if you're not looking for done for you we can also do to our strategy sessions which will actually help you map out exactly how you're going to show up online where you should be showing up online and what you should be putting out there when you do if any of that is of interest to you please let me know and reach out because the ultimate goal of me doing these videos and putting all the content out that we do is to actually help you stop drowning in the overwhelm and to give you some clarity and help you grow your business without all the fluff and the nonsense and everything else in the meantime guys have an amazing week and like i said any questions any comments please pop them below or direct message me let's see how i can help you have a wonderful week guys bye for now [Music] if you'd like to learn more about how to grow your business online and in this incredible digital space that we are doing all of our business in then make sure that you hit the subscribe button below and don't forget to click the bell so you get notified every single time we have a new video that goes live with training and education for you if you are drowning in the marketing overwhelm we have two hour strategy sessions available via zoom to help you get clarity get a clear plan get a digital strategy map and checklists that will help you grow your business online so if that's something of interest to you make sure that you comment below and let's have a chat
Blogging Tips for Beginners: START Adding These Elements to Your Blog
