If you’ve decided to start a blog to promote your business, congratulations! You’ve taken a big step in moving your content marketing forward. But it will help to have a strategy. That means defining precisely what you want your blog to do. This guide should help you understand the eight things that your blog should be doing for you. If your blog isn’t doing at least six of these eight things (preferably all of them), then you should seriously reconsider your blogging strategy.

1. Educate your audience

It all begins here. If you are not teaching your readers something, why should they come back? As the authority on your subject, you have the knowledge your readers desire. They are looking to you for leadership, authority, and knowledge. Be liberal in the dispensing of helpful information. It is from this that everything else flows.

2. Attract attention to your brand

You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if no one ever finds your blog, then what difference does it make? Use your blog as a platform for driving your public relations message and attracting attention toward your brand. Whether you are a soloproneur, a large corporation, or a small business, your blog can be a powerful PR tool.

3. Present you as an authority in your niche

Repeat after me: I am an authority.

Now: I am the authority in my niche.

Start with thinking it, then believing it, then acting like the authority you want others to see you as. Your blog is an important tool in your arsenal for nurturing the perception that you are an authority to listen to. If you are educating your audience and keeping your readers informed on the most compelling topics related to your niche, then becoming an authority should be a cinch.

4.Drive more traffic to your website

Blogging is striking a fine balance between original, incredible content and getting traction where your audience is hanging out. When you find your audience, your goal should be to entice them onto your website so that you can convert them and close the sale. That means driving traffic.

Of course, your blog can exist on the back end of your website, on its own domain, or as a subdomain of your main site. Wherever it lives, it should be driving traffic to your website.

In some rare cases, your blog might be your website. In that case, it should serve as your authority hub and be the main driver of traffic. At the end of the day, you want more eyeballs on your content.

5. Pre-sell your product or service

Pre-selling is preparing your prospect for the buying experience. If you are educating your audience, attracting attention to your brand, and becoming the authority in your niche, then this should be occurring naturally. In many cases, however, it is not.

As a blogger, you should understand the sales process and know what makes readers commit to a purchase. Whether you are selling a service or a product, you’ve got to hit the right emotional triggers in order to close the sale. Do you know what motivates your reader? Figure that out and you’ll know which emotional triggers to pull. Instead of using your blog as a sales tool, use it as a pre-sales tool.

6. Generate leads for your business

Generating leads goes hand in hand with pre-selling and driving traffic. You don’t want just any traffic on your blog. You want the right traffic. You want the traffic that is primed to buy what you are selling.

To generate leads for your business, you have to define what makes a good lead. Who is your perfect prospect? Attract that person to your blog, educate them on your product or service, and send them to the most relevant landing pages to meet their most heartfelt needs. That’s why you are blogging in the first place. Isn’t it?

7. Make your website more social

People thrive on community. Make your blog a community and prospects will stick around. Get them commenting on your posts, making suggestions for others, and sharing ideas. One way to do that is to invite guest bloggers to your community to share their ideas. If necessary, pay them an honorarium for doing so. Ask them to respond to comments, and then promote their guests posts with the same level of enthusiasm you have when you promote your own.

8. Improve the SEO of your website

Search engine optimization isn’t the be-all end-all of Internet marketing. That’s why it’s listed last. But it is important.

You can do all of the other things on this list well and no have a well optimized blog and still be profitable. However, a well optimized blog will have higher search engine rankings and attract more of the right targeted traffic, the kind of traffic you are looking for.

In short, good SEO won’t make your blog, but it will enhance a blog that is doing all the right things, and it will make a good blog even better.

Are you ready to boost your authority? Looking for ways to expand your reach and deliver the best content for your niche audience? Download my free report, “14 Types of Authority Content“. Learn the 14 types of content that will keep your audience coming back for more and instantly make you an authority they can rely on.

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