If you’ve visited my blog before you’ve seen me talking about defining a blog strategy. What it means, a little of why it’s important, and how you can get started in specific areas of you blog. But I haven’t given you any examples of how exactly a strategy can help you.
Today we’ll go over 4 benefits of having a solid blog strategy.
Increased Focus For Yourself
A benefit of a strong blog strategy that many are surprised by is the increased clarity and focus they find themselves. They find that filling up their editorial calendar is easier than ever, they don’t need to waste time considering fancy new plugins, and they don’t have to spend time rearranging their sidebar.
This is because creating a blog strategy forces you to define your goals and leaves you with a solid plan. All your decisions can then be based on those goals.
Increased Focus For Your Readers
Have you ever found yourself on a blog where you don’t know what to do first? Where there are calls to action all over the place, you end up opening 10 tabs, and then giving up and closing them before you’ve even made it through the first two?
I’ve seen many blogs like this. And while I appreciate the fact that they’re trying to show their readers all of their amazing content, having a focused approach is more effective.
When your readers visit your site they should never feel like they’re being pulled in opposing directions because of several calls-to-action on one page. I prefer one main CTA and then a few smaller ones (“whispers to action” as I’ve heard them referred to).
The main CTA for people who haven’t been on my site before is to download a checklist, which you can see in my header and footer. If they’re reading a blog post, they may also run across a stronger call to action to grab a piece of bonus content along with more subtle calls-to-action through my social share buttons and related posts.
Having one main call-to-action and several subtle ones will allow your readers to avoid overwhelm and encourage them to take action.
Make Your Website Do The Hard Work For You
No one likes to cross their fingers and hope that their visitors find what they need to become clients and customers. Constantly pushing direct sales? No thank you.
The great thing about a blog strategy is that it will do these things for you. Your readers need guidance and that’s exactly what they’ll get through your strategy.
In defining your goals, you’ll find that your main product or service forms your main goal. You’ll then take steps to define supporting goals that will, over time, lead your readers to that main goal. They’ll then be able to make an informed decision on whether that product or service is a good fit for them.
Your supporting goals will do things like leading your readers through your amazing blog posts, keeping them connected with you on social media, and getting them to sign up for your free workbook or email course. Of course, this only works for readers who are interested in your content, but that’s exactly what we’re looking for here.
Increased Conversions
To get a bit more specific on my last point, you will likely find that your blog strategy ends up leading you to increased conversions in at least one way.
As an example, one of my supporting goals is to grow my email list. I identified that to do that I needed valuable free content that was easy for my readers to run across. If you look around this page you’ll see that I encourage readers to sign up for my free 8-day course, which goes into depth on my blog’s main topic. Also, if you were to click one of the links I’ve included to another blog post you’ll see that they include free bonus content, which requires an email address for access.
If I hadn’t identified increased email opt-ins as a supporting goal and defined actions to take I wouldn’t have seen the increase in opt-ins I’ve received over the past couple of months.
However, maybe additional email opt-ins isn’t one of your goals. Maybe you’re more concerned with more social media followers, more purchases of your bottom-tier products and services, or just to have visitors read more than one post at a time. Those are also things a defined blog strategy can help you achieve.
