How to make blogging regularly easy

I recently made a new goal to write more, at least writing one blog post a once in week. More and more brands are now trying to catch on to how important blogging is. I thought I'd share some of the hurdles my clients and I sometimes face when it comes to blogging on a regular basis, as well as tips and tools to make it easier. If you are running short of ideas, make use of the tools that will highlight here and your post will seem to flow. The title, the headers, and everything else will just come out easily. I am listing some of the most useful tools to use for brainstorming:

Quora
Answer The Public
My Google Analytics data
My Google Webmaster Tools
Portent Idea Generator
UberSuggest
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
BuzzSumo
MuckRack

Blogging

Sometimes by simply just recapping industry news, sharing infographics, or doing roundups of industry blogs or books can help you get amazing ideas.

Grasp of grammar

There are some good tools such as Microsoft Word or autocorrect in Skype and Chrome that make it super easy to minimize spelling mistakes or grammar errors. However, just because someone has these tools available, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily good in writing. Not everyone is a blessed skilled writer, and to be able to write for several different industries, business verticals or in-depth for specific sectors is something that takes a lot of time to pick up.

Whether you are hiring out or assigning blog post creation to someone in your team, it is mandatory to know the basic rules of grammar and spelling. Riddling your content with typos or malformed sentences regularly is a direct reflection of your company and your brand, no matter who is writing it. It usually takes time to write coherent, mostly error-free content.

A writer can try running their content through three places:

HemingwayApp: A free tool, this is a brutal app and can rip you apart. But it does point out things you might not have noticed, for instance, passive sentences.

Grammarly: Free chrome that corrects grammar in emails and other text fields (such as WordPress text editor and so on). One can buy the membership to check your content in-browser, like Hemingway.

CopyScape: I run my employees' content and other content writer's work) through CopyScape to check for plagiarism and it is a paid tool.

Knowledge of best Web practices
Sometimes many good companies don't think about one important skill when shaping their strategy for writing blog posts is cross-training in aspects of the written word unique to the internet. Basic knowledge of HTML can help writers learn things like how to write while aligning images, writing effective alt text, and making sure there aren't unnecessary tags.

One must attribute proper image sourcing because the absence of proper attribution, websites that post content (no matter who has written) with badly sourced images can get you fined thousands of dollars. You can avoid by using some of these free image sources (or a stock photo membership):
Pixabay
Canva
Unsplash
Photopin (ensure use the code they give for proper attribution)

If all else seems to be failing, I sometimes also insert tweets, Facebook posts, in lieu of additional images for posts. As a result, my post gets more interactive and engaging.

Learn more about my content strategy plan and completely transform your business. PioneerMarketers is a global service provider of top selling B2C and B2B email lists fulfilling all your data needs.

Ways to market your content effectively

As we all know, inbound marketing addresses content creation, but one should not create content without figuring out who you’re marketing (target audience) to and how you will market to them effectively. If you overlook these initial steps to ensure your content reaches the right set of audience, your content will not be successful. So if your content is placed on your website and not getting too many downloads or leads, there is certainly some problem with you promotion strategies. That being said, we are sharing useful ways to market your content, be it ebook, PPT, whitepaper, guide and so on:

1) To advertise your content offer, create a PPC campaign

Not only PPC is a great way to promote your company and its line of business, you can also set up a campaign to promote your content offer. It will boost visibility and downloads while providing vital information to searchers.

For instance, if I search for home remodeling, and I get to see a list of local companies trying to promote themselves. But if I have never heard of these companies, I will not be able to take a decision as to which home remodeling company is right for me?

Here’s when a content offer based PPC ad can play a significant role. If you’re advertising an ebook with a title named “How to Get the Best Home Remodeling Organization that suits your Timeline and Budget”. This will certainly stand out against the other ads and search results as it directly helps solve my problem. PPC ad will probably get the click and boost conversion.

Another great way to get your content offer on relevant websites is display ads. With display ads, you can choose the websites that you want your ad to pop up. This way, visitors who are browsing a popular website that you chose, can find your related content offer.

2) Guest blogging on popular websites

Some of the popular websites try to provide solutions to predominant problems that their readership is experiencing for a while. It is important to understand your buyer’s persona and the source from where do they get information. Once you get a clear picture of the websites your buyer persona is reading, see if these websites provide the platform for industry leaders to guest blog.

After getting the approval for guest blogging, you can write your articles, keeping them educational and without self-promoting. Always keep this in mind, you’re trying to help the reader solve a problem with your expertise and industry knowledge. Later, you can use your ebook as a next step call to action when the reader has finished the article and wants more information, your content offer is ready!

3) Email marketing is a great way to promote the ebook

If you have a set of clients or prospects who have already expressed interest in similar content offers, or those who have identified certain problems and they need some concrete resolution, let them know about your new content offer!

Come up with actions on your contact form such as,

Generate more leads

Rank higher on Google

Grow our web presence

Once you know a visitor is looking out for ways to rank higher on Google, you can create an e-book around the topic they are looking for. You must be consistent in blogging that brings visitors back to your website. You can also email your blog to the section of people you’re targeting.

When sending emails, try to keep it educational and try to help a segmented list of your contacts as your engagement level will be higher and your success will not be diminished.

4) Connect with niche audience on social media

Keep an eye on Twitter and LinkedIn for users that have been sharing similar content to what you have created. You can see who is getting the biggest reach in terms of likes and retweets by searching similar terms.

5) Reach out to industry influencers for getting their leadership approach

Industry influencers have two main business goals. First, to find relevant articles and share it with their fan base and to increase their reach. Hence, you can give them great content to share with their following and by increasing their reach just through a link or a quote in your content offer.

It works better if you give them an incentive to share your content offer. For instance, ask them for a quote that you can incorporate into your content (offer) or link it to another article they have previously written.

6) Look for other linking opportunities

Using tools such as AHREFs, you can actually get to see other websites who have linked to content like yours. You can reach out to them with your content offer link and see if they are willing to include a link to your resource. This is most helpful when you come across a broken link that your new link can replace.

7) Repurpose your content in different ways

By having multiple formats of your content, you have better chances of reaching a greater audience. Content can come in different ways such as a blog, an article, an infographic, snippets, videos, PPTs and much more. Infographic for instance, is great to share on social platforms, particularly Pinterest, because of its visual appeal.

Make use of these brilliant marketing tips and put in some extra effort to take a content offer from zero to hero.

About the author:

Marilyn Lyons is a veteran search, content and social marketer, and blogger at PioneerMarketers. Over the past one decade, Marilyn has successfully developed and implemented online marketing tactics and has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands. Her focus is to drive traffic and implement strategies for conversion campaigns for more than 100+ plus business of all sizes. In this blog, she is sharing some useful insights on how to market your content effectively to continually improve and maintain the quality of B2B email contact database. Over the years, she has been adding a number of B2C data cards to help you reach your niche target audience, the latest one being the Animal Food Manufacturers Email List. She enjoys working with a variety of entrepreneurs and small businesses in the USA and UK region.