4 Tips to Get the Most Impact from Your Blogging Efforts

The world of blogging is a global practice that is now over 20 years old and one of the main sources of information, communication and marketing that people use.

77% of internet users read around 10 blog posts, spending nearly 23% of their internet time on blogs or social media platforms.

This constitutes a huge potential marketplace for brands and businesses to leverage, driving valuable traffic to their ideas and products.

The market is, however, highly saturated and is growing exponentially. There are over 1.5 billion blogs on the internet and California alone has over 30 million active bloggers. That being said, considering that 70% of consumers learn about a company from an article rather than an advertisement, blogging is likely the best way for you to market your brand to the internet marketplace.

For those looking to make the most of their blogging efforts, these 6 tips are sure to help you optimize your efforts.

Format Your Article Properly

One reason why your blog may not be getting traffic and engagement the way you expect could be the poor and sloppy formatting technique. Though you are likely not a professional writer, misspelled words, bad grammar, and article structure that’s hard to follow can be killer.

As a general rule, your articles should have a short, attention-grabbing title and be divided into easy-to-digest subsections with subheaders that make it easy to find the information the reader is looking for.

Titles with 6-13 words statistically attract the highest and most consistent traffic. Subheaders should also be larger than general text but not as large as the main article headline. The trick is to break the article down into short paragraphs with headlines that keep the reader wanting to know more.

Be Sure to Use Images

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. In the world of blogging, adding pictures to your article is a great way to boost engagement and attract more traffic. A blog post with images gets 94% more views than those that don’t have image-based content. Users tend to spend 10% more time looking at pictures than reading content, as imagery helps readers to better understand and visualize the points being made in your article.

Try to use one image per 350 words for maximum effectiveness. One thing you should keep in mind, however, is that although images are important, large pictures can negatively affect loading times of your content. This can be quite bad as the average user only waits 2 seconds before moving on. Therefore, make sure to reformat images to ensure the fastest possible load times on your post.

Don’t Forget to Optimize for Social Shares

The main way that new readers will likely find your content is via social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Knowing that, you should always ensure your article is optimized to generate social shares from your readers.

Adding a share button can go a long way to allow a reader who enjoys your content become a promoter of your brand by sharing it with their community and circle of friends online. Additionally, whenever you publish a new post, make sure to share it on social media channels to expose it to the biggest potential reader-base.

The Time of Publishing Matters

A final tip to boost your blogging efforts is to be strategic of the times of day your target audience is online.

For example, posting a blog on your Facebook during the times your audience is sleeping is a waste of effort and will likely receive little engagement. The average blog gets the most traffic around 11 am Eastern Time because 77% of users read blogs in the morning.

According to statistics, the best time for page views is between 8 am and 11 am on a Monday morning and the best time for increased engagement is Saturday between 8 am and 11 am. That means you should plan your publishing and promotion schedule to make the most of those morning hours for best results.

Infographic URL:https://websitebuilder.org/resources/blogging/