Did you know that WordPress powers more than of all websites on the internet, and there are more than blog post views each month on its platform?
Blogging is still a great way to present yourself as a thought leader in your industry. In fact, 89% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing to grow their business.
This means that you shouldn't underestimate the power of content marketing even in 2022, but you need to know what strategies will work the best.
That's why this post will cover 6 blogging secrets that'll help build trust in your brand and grow your blog, starting with breaking a previous trend.
1. There's No Ideal Length of a Post
Last year, all marketers kept emphasizing that you have to create long-form blog content and pillar articles to compete for rankings on Google.
Well, that's not the case anymore.
As long as the information you provide is valuable and relevant to your target keyword, the length doesn't matter.
Instead, make sure you're writing about topics your audience wants to read about, and your blog posts could be everything from 300-2000 words or more apiece and still rank in search engines.
Since quality is vital, it's better to have a shorter blog post packed with helpful content than a long post with meaningless rambling.
2. Focus on Writing Enticing Titles to Boost CTR
Next year, it'll be all about writing eye-catching headlines that entice people to click and read your blog posts over the competition.
You need to find ways to stand out from the crowd, and an excellent way to do this is by crafting compelling and engaging titles.
To help you with that, you can use isitwp's headline analyzer that'll provide a title score and recommendations on how to improve your title.
Also, the title tag is one of the key tags Google looks for when deciding if and how to rank your page.
Not only do you need to write eye-catching titles, but they should also include your target keyword. I suggest using an on-page SEO plugin to help you optimize your title tags (more about this in step 4).
3. Use a Conversational Tone
It's essential to use a conversational tone that everyone can understand to get readers to stay on your page.
Even highly technical blog posts should be transformed into text that is easily digestible to provide a good user experience and boost rankings on Google.
That's because Google and other popular search engines prioritize usability and how long users stay on your page when ranking web pages. Using too technical jargon may cause readers to leave and look for another blog post that's easier to understand, increasing your bounce rate.
Apart from using a conversational tone, you can increase the user experience by breaking up long text paragraphs with bullet points, listicles, subtitles, and images. Improving your formatting will make it easier for your visitors to scan your content and find what they're looking for.
On top of that, it'll also make them stay longer on your page, which will boost your SEO.
4. Optimize for SEO
In addition to using a conversational tone on your blog, statistics show that almost of all clicks on the SERPs (search engine results pages) go to the top 3 listings.
That's why it's crucial to optimize your blog posts for on-page SEO. And the easiest way to ensure your posts are optimized is by using a WordPress SEO plugin, like AIOSEO, Yoast SEO, or Rank Math.
Any of these plugins will make it easy to optimize your blog posts with target keywords and title tags. They'll also check your readability score and give suggestions on how to improve your content.
And if you want to take your SEO to the next level, you can take advantage of pro features such as schema markup, RSS sitemaps, robots.txt, and more. They give you all the tools you need to boost rankings in search engines.
In addition, you also need to optimize for off-page SEO and try to build a good backlink strategy.
For instance, you can use SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to check for websites with good domain authority within your niche and then reach out to them and ask if they can feature one of your guest posts.
5. Focus on Engagement
You want readers to engage and interact with your content to build trust in your brand and improve SEO rankings.
For starters, you should focus on creating enticing content that compels readers to comment and share their points of view. Try to be creative and unique.
For example, you can host a giveaway contest and encourage participants to enter the competition in the comment section of your blog.
When Google sees that people are interacting with your content, it'll favor it in search results. You can then share the results on your social media platforms and drive more referral traffic to your blog.
Another strategy to boost engagement is to end each blog post asking for feedback. For instance, you can end your post with: "We hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. Please let us know if we missed something or just share your thoughts in the comment section below. We'd love to hear from you!"
In addition to comments, reviews are extremely important and can be the make or break of your business. In fact, of customers won't take action until they read reviews or other forms of engagement with your business.
No matter what product or service your blog promotes, you should encourage people to leave you reviews to grow your brand.
6. Build an Email List
Finally, I can't state enough the importance of using opt-in forms and collecting email addresses on your website. With email marketing, you can actually generate a return on investment (ROI), according to research.
Building an email list is essential since you own that list, and it can't be taken away from you if your website breaks or your advertising account gets banned.
With email marketing, you can focus on building long-lasting relationships with your subscribers and offer them exclusive content and deals.
You also have the option to present different offers to your subscribers more times than once. Generally, you have to put an offer in front of customers' eyes seven times before they make a purchase, and that's one of the powers of building an email list.
Conclusion
Creating a successful blog takes time and effort, and it won't happen overnight. But if you use these 6 blogging secrets and focus on providing value to your readers, you will become a thought leader in your industry and build a loyal audience before you know it.
