Ways to Improve Your Blog – All About Content
Content is really the lifeblood of any good blog. Dictionary.com describes lifeblood as a life-giving, vital, or animating element. This definition could really not be closer to the truth when it comes to blogging. Think about it. Content is what gives our blogs life and what animates us.
This is Part 1 in an eight part series from the article 99 Ways to Improve Your Blog from the blog Traffic to Your Blog written by Steinar Arason. Please check out all of the posts in this series: Content, Design & Appearance, Functionality, Marketing, SEO, Networking, Subscribers and Making Money.
Write Better Content
Quality of content is the most important criteria for blogging success. Great content makes marketing your blog easier, and you’ll be able to improve the community around your blog as others recognize the value of the information that you provide. Writing better content is not always easy, but we can all place more importance and dedicate more time to content development.
Set Aside Time for Brainstorming
Writing skills aren’t the only requirement for creating great content. First you have to have original and interesting ideas. Without good ideas for posts your quality of content will suffer, even with the best of writing skills. Set aside time each week or month to brainstorm and come up with as many post ideas as possible. Several months ago I wrote a guide on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
Hire Other Writers
If you’re unable to produce enough quality content for your blog, paying others to do it for you is always an option. There are plenty of bloggers who are willing to write for pay. If your blog can produce more money than you spend it may be a situation to consider.
Publish Guest Posts
Many bloggers that want more comment but can’t afford to pay writers will publish guest posts from other bloggers. Guest posting is great for everyone as it gives the blog owner some free content, gives the writer some exposure and a link, and it gives readers more content and a different perspective.
Publish More Frequently
Would your blog benefit if you were to publish more posts? Not every blogger needs to post more frequently, but some could definitely benefit from it. More posts means more content for readers, more pages for search engines, and hopefully more traffic for you.
Publish Less Frequently
On the other hand, do you publish too frequently? Some bloggers could benefit by reducing quantity and increasing quality. There are plenty of authority bloggers that choose to post less frequently and always provide top-notch content. Maki of Dosh Dosh is probably the best example.
Start a Weekly Series
You may be able to improve reader anticipation by posting on a particular topic on the same day every week. This can help to create more interest in your upcoming posts, plus it can effectively brand your blog.
Link Out More Often
Do you make an effort to link out to other blogs in your posts? Try to find opportunities to link to valuable and relevant resources whenever possible. Others will notice and appreciate it, and many are likely to return the favor. Plus you will be helping readers by putting more information at their disposal.
Use More Internal Links in Your Posts
External links aren’t the only links that are important in your posts. Always take a moment before publishing a post to look for opportunities to link to old posts. Internal links can help with search engine rankings, they can drive click-through traffic, and they can also help if scrapers are stealing your feed.
Get Rid of Some of Your Other Projects and Focus
Are you trying to do too much at once? Many bloggers are running multiple blogs simultaneously, and too often the result is that all of the blogs suffer from neglect. If you are stretched too thin, give up some of your projects that aren’t as important to you.
Include a Podcast
Offering a podcast is one way to add some diversity to your blog and to attract a new audience. Podcasting is not difficult with modern blogging platforms and FeedBurner. For more information, read How to Create Your Own Podcast .
Publish Video Posts
Many bloggers have discovered the impact of video blogging. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger regularly publishes video posts, and they seem to always draw a good amount of attention. With the easily-accessible technology that is available, video blogging is an option for just about anyone.
Run a Poll or Survey
Polls and surveys can be a fun way to improve interaction from readers, and you can even learn a lot about your readers during the process. WordPress users can easily add a poll to their blog with the WP-Polls plugin. PollDaddy is another free, popular option.
Listen to Suggestions from Readers on Content
If you want to provide readers with content that they will appreciate, listen to their suggestions and feedback to see what types of content they like, and what they don’t like. Polls and surveys can be useful for this purpose as well.
Update Posts that are Out of Date
It is almost unavoidable that some of your posts will eventually become out of date. This is an understandable part of blogging, but what you should avoid is the confusion and misrepresentation that sometimes comes with these situations. Imagine someone does a Google search for a particular topic and they arrive at one of your old blog posts. To them this is new information and they may assume that it is your current information, not realizing that it is out of date. It can be helpful to include a brief statement at the beginning or end of the post that the situation has changed and the content may not be current anymore.
Link to Related Posts
Your readers who are interested in a particular post may also want to read your other posts that are related to the topic. WordPress users have several different plugins to choose from, including the popular Related Entries.
Move AdSense Out of the Way
Nothing is more annoying and distracting to readers than advertisements right in the body of the content. If you are going to use AdSense to monetize your blog, at least put it in a location that won’t distract readers (assuming you care about the readers’ experience on your blog and not just the AdSense income).
Publish Interviews with Top Bloggers in Your Niche
Interviews can be a great source of information for readers and they can also give you some valuable networking opportunities. Most bloggers are open to interviews, they just aren’t asked very often.
Answer Reader Questions in Posts
Some bloggers are very effective at helping their readers by dedicating posts to answering questions from readers. This can help you to come up with content ideas, improve your blog’s value to readers, and get readers actively participating.
Proofread Your Posts
We all make mistakes, but by proofreading your posts you can help to present a professional image to your readers. Be sure to spell check your posts before publishing and try to find and fix any grammatical errors.
Use the Timestamp Feature When You Will Be Away
Publishing content while you are on vacation or away from the computer doesn’t need to be difficult. Most of the leading blogging platforms offer the option to timestamp the post for a future date and time. When that time comes the post will be published just as if you had done so manually.
Use a Blog Editor
Many bloggers use word processors to write their posts because sometimes the standard system from a blogging platform isn’t ideal. However, word processors can cause problems because they insert a lot of unnecessary code that will hurt the performance of your blog. Blog Editors offer the best of both worlds. My editor of choice is Blog Desk .
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