Want your blog to work harder in 2014? It's easy to fall into a rut, producing similar types of content. Rethink your blog marketing. Challenge yourself to keep your blog fresh, for yourself and your visitors.
According to Wordlometers, three million blog posts were published today, so there's a lot of competition for your blog. Your challenge in 2014 is not only to get more targeted visitors to your blog, but also to ensure that your blog helps you to meet your marketing goals.
Let's look at four tips which will help you to make your blog work harder, and achieve your blog marketing goals.
1. Maximize the return on your investment: make your content work harder.
Creating blog content takes time and energy. Repurposing makes your blog work harder.
Arnie Kuenn of CMI suggests thinking about repurposing from the start:
Creating a repurposing plan at the beginning of your content marketing strategy development will help you brainstorm and produce content efficiently, while keeping your repurposing process streamlined and in alignment with your other great content efforts.
You can use the information you've collected for a blog post and create a video, or a presentation. In addition, you can use snippets and images from the content on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Vital: before you create content to repurpose, make a note of your goals for the content.
2. Collaborate: reach out to others.
Every blog needs more and better traffic. When you reach out to others, you can build connections which will increase your traffic. Make a list of connections: your business colleagues, other bloggers in your niche, and your suppliers.
Buzzstream is an excellent tool for outreach. If you've been trying to build relationships, you know there's a lot to track. You need stronger tools than email and spreadsheets.
3. Stay in touch: build your mailing list.
When someone reaches your blog, give them a chance to get more from you. A mailing list is an essential tool. Most mailing list providers (aweber, for example) will send your latest blog posts to subscribers via email.
Your mailing list increases your conversions without effort.
4. Mine the gold in your archives: keep content relevant.
If your blog is new, you won't yet have archives. On the other hand, if you've been blogging for years, you've got great material which your visitors may never see.
Reviving an older post takes just a few minutes. If the content's up to date, just change the call to action. If it needs to be brought up to date, it may take a few minutes longer. You can repurpose older content too. Use snippets in social media postings, or turn the content into video or use it in a podcast.
Bonus tip: integrate your blog and website.
On some company websites, the blog's shunted off to the side, like a red-headed stepchild. To make your blog work harder, make it part of your website. If you're launching a new product for example, add those blog links which discuss the product.
So there you have it: blog marketing tips to build a hard-working blog in 2014. If you put them into action, your blog will add to your bottom line.