Believe it or not, you’ve got more content resources right now than you probably realize. Like change hiding in coat pockets or under couch cushions, it adds up – but only if you take the time to collect it in a meaningful way. Consider each piece of content in your website or blog as a piece of string. By themselves, they’re probably not very impressive – a strand here or there that won’t support much weight, marketing-wise.
Do you want your customers to try to struggle up that rope like a dreaded junior high gym class test, or to nimbly scale their way to your checkout page through a comfortable, cushioned rope ladder? A few extra connections – another side and the rungs, in this example – make all the difference for drawing in a curious onlooker. Linking your content and tying it back into itself will make that happen, and chances are you already have a lot of anchor points to work with. Want to get started? Here are some blog optimization tips to help you leverage existing content and build it up:
Establish an Editorial Calendar
How many blog posts do you have active right now? If their traffic and click-through stats are less than stellar, it’s time to redirect your customer’s eyes on them while infusing them with new life. Create an ‘editorial calendar’ – essentially a subject and posting plan for upcoming blog posts – and tie each new subject into one that’s already posted. If, for example, you have a blog post on avoiding sunburn from last summer, a casual intro mention in a fall piece (“Now that you’ve made it through summer without getting sunburnt…”) can act as an anchor and help boost stats, even for an older post.
Show Some Industry Love
Your customers look to you as a voice of authority on your product or service, so don’t answer them with an echo chamber. Branch out by citing and linking other authoritative sources, such as respected news outlets or reports for your industry, to boost the authenticity of your company concepts and ideas within blog posts.This will not only help your standing in search engine results pages, it will demonstrate that your business stays on the cutting edge of technological or social advances to your readers. Beyond blog optimization tips, moves like these can help on social media too – be sure to ‘like’ manufacturers and logistics companies that you work with, as long as it won’t compromise supply chain security.
Put a Bell On Top
If you’re going to ask a customer to climb onto the ladder you’ve built, make sure there’s something worthwhile waiting for them at the top. Keep your posting schedules consistent, don’t repeat concepts if you can help it, and ask your blog writing team to put their own spin on up-to-date industry news to help establish your blog as a de facto news source. Using blog optimization tips is a practice that should be just as much about human readers as the robotic search engine ones – a clever mix of fresh content and conservative interlinking puts out the welcome mat for both.
Delany M is a freelance writer available for projects at WriterAccess.
