Many experienced bloggers will tell you that there’s a recipe to follow when it comes to blogging. The information I share below is a direct result of my own experience and learning by doing.

Write with authority

Get to the point, don’t waffle, and hit hard with relevant and valuable information. Write about what you know about, because your audience will sniff you out if you’re faking it.

Write for your audience

Make your content interesting and relevant to your target audience. Stick to the topic and don’t digress. It’s better to write a short, focused blog than one which includes too many varying sub-topics or ideas.

Write with SEO in mind

Your content should include wording that your audience uses when searching for your content on social networks and search engines. Don’t only be keyword-heavy though, write in an authentic style and be genuine. Use meaningful and accurate tags before you publish your content. This helps the search engines index the content properly.

Use images & video

Not only do images make your content aesthetically pleasing, but when used with captions and ALT tags, improve search ranking as well. Give the image owner, creator or source due credit and don’t use copyright-protected images without permission. Don’t be afraid to embed video content into your blog posts as this adds interest and relevance.

Utilize links

Link images, words and phrases to content inside (like this) and outside your website (like this). This improves SEO ranking, but even more valuable, sends your audience to other pieces of interesting content – adding more value to them, improving your relevance and credibility. When linking away from your blog post, make sure you set the link to open in a new tab or window, otherwise you’re causing people to leave your website or page.

Distribute your content

Leverage the reach of social networks to help your audience find your content. Great places to do this are Facebook and LinkedIn groups, Twitter and Instagram. When linking to blog content on these platforms, don’t simply paste a link and hit post. Write an interesting introduction which briefly describes your article – this will entice more people to click through and help more people find your content.

Here’s a good example, posted in a Facebook group:

Distribute your blog posts on social networks

Blog regularly

As you blog, your website fills up with interesting, searchable content and the number of people who find your site will steadily increase. Start and don’t ever stop.