Blogging is a wonderful thing. It has been a huge and influential step in the democratization of our media. It has empowered many to shake off the shackles of wage slavery and go into business for themselves, turning their blogs into a steady source of income. What’s more, a blog can be an extremely potent marketing tool for the nascent entrepreneur. It can humanize their brand by giving them a voice and allow them to share their insights, experience and advice. This not only builds value in their brand but engenders trust in prospects, helping to facilitate conversions. For freelancers it can promote awareness of the services they offer and showcase their talents to prospective clients.

A blog can raise awareness of an important issue. It can help to promote a charitable cause. It can give a voice to the voiceless and enlightenment to the unenlightened. But in order for your blog to achieve it’s true potential, the right sets of eyes need to get in front of it. Here are some time honored ways in which bloggers of all shapes and sizes can ensure that their voice is heard by those who need to hear it the most.

Get to know your SEO

If you run a small business for which you blog, it’s likely that you’re familiar (at least in principle) with Search Engine Optimization. This means ensuring that your blog appears as highly on search engine rankings as possible to reach the people who are asking the questions to which you and / or your business provide answers. If you’re blogging to promote your small business or your freelance services, it’s recommended that you liaise with an SEO agency to help you to maximise your impact. However, if you don’t have the resources to do this, there are still a number of ways in which you can improve your SEO such as;

• Install a plugin like Yoast that will help you to make your writing more SEO friendly.

• Research your keywords to ensure that they make for maximum engagement.

• Try to get trusted high authority domains like local businesses and newspapers to backlink to you.

• Embed internal links throughout your content.

Join the community

Whatever your chosen niche, whether you’re writing for promotion or passion, it’s highly likely that your blog is aimed at a certain subculture of people who will have their own communities on social media platforms. Join these communities and be a reciprocal member. This means not just using the community to promote your own content, but also helping to promote that which others have created.

Develop a strategy

Many bloggers and businesses alike fail to get the most out of their blogs because they produce content on an ad hoc basis with no strategy behind it. This can prevent them from capitalizing on important opportunities like trending topics. Whatever your reasons for blogging, make sure that you have a clear content strategy that capitalizes on changes in user interest e.g. seasonally themed posts or posts that coincide with key events in your chosen industry.

Your voice has the potential to change the world. It’s just a case of making sure that the right people hear it.