Marketing is more than showing products and describing them. It is about building a relationship with potential customers so that you will be able to sell to them. The best way to build that connection is through adding a blog to your website.
If people trust your blog and your brand, they are going to be more likely to trust your company, which means more sales. With a blog, they get to know what is important to you (or at least your bloggers), whom they assume are aligned with your ideas and philosophy for your business. Additionally, they receive something from you (information they require) without your consent. When did blogging first begin? Some give credit to Justin Hall, a college student who wanted a place to keep his writing. It is more likely that Justin started it as a blog website in 1994, and then others picked it up until it became a “thing” in 2003, when people wanted to do blogs everywhere. Whatever the case, today, a blog is more than a place to put one’s thoughts or experiences. If you don’t have one, you should get one if you want your business to survive. As Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft, once said, “Content is king. Whoever is a part of creating content will be the next billionaires.”
Why is a blog an essential marketing tool?
When you run a business, your blog should be viewed as part of your branding and should reflect the personality of your company as a whole.
The content should be rich in SEO and be filled with content that your desired audience wants to see and like to engage with–and, hopefully, come back to. That’s what encourages people to buy from you and helps build your credibility. So it needs to be designed well and feature lots of relevant content.
After creating that content, you shouldn’t just leave it there. Make sure it’s optimized for multiple devices, since a majority view content on mobile devices rather than on desktops. Additionally, you need tools to promote your blog and cross-linking material will also increase your SEO.
With each piece of marketing material you put out, there is another opportunity to use keywords that you want customers to use to find you. And as a result, the right people (and hopefully new customers) are looking at your content!
Improving your blog design
If having good content on your website is important, isn’t it just as important to have an attractive design that will keep people coming back? Short answer, yes.
Sometimes, all it takes are a few tweaks here and there to greatly improve the look of your professional website and turn it into a design blog. Don’t stress over the technical stuff. That’s what we are here to help with. But adding different colors or textures like you would a room in your house can make all the difference to your visitors. At the very least, you need to aim for the idea to optimize your blog content by making the place your visitors go to see it more appealing.
You can decide, perhaps with the assistance of a professional, which aspects of your website need to be altered. Maybe the changes will only involve a little tweaking. Make it shine, no matter what! Like meeting someone for the first time, your blog (besides your website), is the first impression you get to make on your visitors.
Use your sign-up list of the people who have subscribed to your blog so that they will automatically get updates when a new post rolls out! Making your customers feel engaged is one of the main reasons people subscribe, so use the natural tendency of humans to your advantage!
3 Things every blog should have
Share Buttons
Do not forget to remind your members to share the blog with others, especially specific posts that focus on important topics that others will be interested in. Share buttons can be simple or elaborate. The most important thing is that they get noticed so people will use them to share with all their friends.
Author name and photo
Google’s algorithms have undergone numerous modifications. But a while back, they almost seemed to communicate to authors and blog managers that you should forget the algorithms and just focus on the blogger. The idea of getting to know the blogger is a bit more appealing to people. They need that human connection (as mentioned earlier) to feel engaged with something. If your blog can provide that by getting some information about the author out there with a nice snapshot of them, it will help the process greatly.
Search feature
The search feature allows users to search for topics of other blogs or other search words that will bring up previous posts that are related to what people like. The more material you can provide that is relevant to them, the more you win.
Best practices and tips for designing a blog To get started on improving the design of your blog, study the points below and think about how they can help improve the appearance of your blog.
Fonts are more important than you think
When changing your fonts, remember that they are one of the first things your readers see on your page. The fonts and titles on your page help people immediately decide whether or not to stay on your page. Use only 2 or 3 fonts as a maximum, as too many will clutter the look of the page.
Have a color scheme in mind
The color scheme of a blog is critical. Think about how it matches or complements your webpage. Are the colors the same pattern (or at least complementary) to your main website? Think about your favorite dishes set. Are the saucers the same color as the larger plates, or are they totally different? Your website and your blog are a pair and they should be complementary to each other and work together to get your message across to the people you want to reach. Don’t pick more than 2 or 3 complementary colors.
HTML Tweaks
You can make a number of additional changes to your website if you know HTML, Javascript, or other programming languages. Even a small modification to the HTML can have a significant impact on your Google rankings over time. The algorithm is set to where the “bots” go out every few days to scan the web for new content. Even a change in your font or color background can increase your visibility with your audience.
Arrangement on the Page
Mark Cuban once advised a new online technology company to make a single change to their blog or website before letting it run for a few weeks to see what happened. By doing this, one asset at a time, you can start to see a pattern in what is driving more traffic. Once you know what that is, you can continue doing what keeps traffic moving. To put it another way, don’t do too much at once. One thing at a time, then check the results. Owning a website and blog is a continual adjustment experiment based on the changing market and the individual needs of your audience. Take a look at some blog website examples to get more inspiration. Notice the different blog styles and think about how you’d like to design your blog and take your ideas to share with Mailchimp.
Embrace the blank space
One mistake many blog owners make is that they think every space should be used. Blog administrators, on the other hand, ought to embrace the page’s empty space. This idea can apply to your blog design also. Don’t feel as though every bit of webpage space needs to be used. The most important space should be used for content, while the rest should be used as a retreat. Embrace the blank space just as much as the used space. I know your visitors will, too.
Always include subheads
Breaking up your content into sections is always a good idea. It keeps readers engaged and keeps them from getting tired when reading your text.
As we have done in this article, the heading at the top should be an H1 (the largest), the heading at the bottom should be an H2, and so on. An H3 heading can be used to write the items in the listicles. However, to conclude, don’t forget to resume the H2 and H1 headings. Although this is only one format, it is a great way to emphasize your blog’s main and subtopics. The brain needs to be organized. If you make it easy for your visitors to do this, they will have a more enjoyable experience.
Learn the importance of CSS
CSS, short for cascading style sheets, is just another type of HTML. On the page, however, it is arranged differently. Below is a simple example of CSS in HTML.
CSS: a { text-decoration: none; }
What this will do is remove the underline in previously-underlined text. In pure HTML, it would look like this:
The first “u” symbolizes the open text to underline and the closed u tells when to stop underlining.
CSS is a shortened form, or a command to tell the browser what to show you when interacting with web pages. But at the same time, especially if you don’t have the time to learn the entire HTML code as I did. Keep in mind that a true CSS is an entire “sheet” or line of code written in shorthand HTML (CSS) format. It is more or less a “laundry list” of commands that you are telling the browser as to how you want your page to act and present itself to your viewers.
If you practice CSS and learn how to use it, you will be amazed at the creative opportunities it will open for your site or blog. Now, you can change whatever you want on your page without restrictions through code. Code may seem boring to some, but it is freedom for those who own websites. It gives you the freedom to make your blog or website anything and everything you want it to be.
Include images but don’t overdo it
Placing images on your pages (including your blog page) is a great way to entice your visitors to want to learn more. We are, by nature, visual beings. We want to see and experience things up close so that we appreciate them. If you choose your images carefully, you will increase the level of engagement and also increase traffic.
