Congratulations, you have a brand new blog to share with the world.
You have lots of great information planned to help visitors and prospects. To get your prospects to take your blog seriously, there are a few tricks to establish credibility.
Here are 9 quick tips to put your new blog on a solid foundation.
1. Blog Theme: Use a paid or customized blog theme that presents your image as professional.
2. Domain Name: Obtain a domain name that includes your keywords. Do not use a sub-domain of a free blog service.
3. Social Sharing: Make it easy for visitors to share your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social platforms. If you use WordPress, simply search for ‘social sharing’ in the plug-ins section to find the plug-in that works for your site. Ideally, use social sharing buttons that indicate the number of Tweets, Likes, and Shares that each post receives. This shows activity and adds important social proof to your blog.
4. Comments: Allow and encourage comments on your blog posts. This engages your readers and builds community on your blog. Make sure your moderate spam or inappropriate comments. It is your blog, so you set the rules.
5. About Page: Your About page is one of the most frequently visited pages with first-time visitors to your blog. As a result, this is one of your most important pages on your blog. Tell your story here. Add your personality. Explain why you built this blog and share your passion for your subject. Your readers want to connect with a real person and people connect with authentic personal stories.
6. Simple Navigation: Set up your blog so it’s easy for your visitors to find information. At the top of your blog site, include a few simple links to your “About”, “Services”, “Blog”, and “Contact” pages. Also, make it easy to find your Popular Posts. Show links in your blog sidebar to these posts. This helps to give your readers a tour of where to go to find your best information.
7. Get Started Here Page: One additional step you can take to guide your visitors is to create a “Get Stared Here” page that you indicate as a link in your top navigation bar. This page guides visitors with links to your About page, your Popular posts, and your Contact page all on one page.
8. Contact Page: Include a form for visitors to email you questions, concerns, or inquiries about your Services. Include links to your Social Media Profiles and ask people to Follow you. 9. Build Social Proof: Display your Facebook Fan Page activity in widget on your blog sidebar. A good idea to kick-start your social proof is to buy Facebook fans.
Follow these steps and your blog will take off.
Hailey Andersen enjoys writing about the latest trends and regularly contributes to a variety of publications. Follow her on Twitter at: @HaileyWrites.
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