In order to generate leads, you first need to generate traffic on your website. Good thing you have access to one of the most effective tools for generating website traffic — blogging.
Believe it or not, before blogging became a popular way for individuals to make money from advertising, it was invented as a way to create consistent content for search engine optimization.
Smart search engine optimization = inbound website traffic
Here are four blogging best practices for generating traffic and turning those visitors into leads:
1. Choose Topics Wisely
The topics you choose are key to generating inbound traffic through search engines. To be truly effective, they need to satisfy both search engines and searchers. Appeasing both of these groups will ensure that you’ll rank for the terms your buyers are searching.
When brainstorming topics, start by by focusing on:
- The terms your buyers will be searching for using search engines.
- Your prospective buyer’s pain points.
Both of these factors revolve around your prospective buyer. So it’s important that you have a clear understanding of your buyer personas before you start brainstorming content ideas.
2. Craft Compelling Headlines
Think of your headline as a promise that the content of your article keeps. Readers aren’t willing to spend their valuable time on just any piece of content, so your headline needs to sell them on the benefits. This is when solving your buyer’s pain points comes in handy!
Remember to take time crafting your headline and make sure it includes compelling verbiage and specific details such as numbers (readers love lists).
3. Follow Through on Promises
You’ll gain the trust and loyalty of your audience when your blog posts consistently deliver on the promises you make in your headlines. To make sure this happens, start by crafting headlines before writing posts.
Next, make sure it’s easy for your reader to see that you’ve followed through on your promise. If you use numbers in your headline like “Three Tips for Marketing Your Small Business with LinkedIn,” clearly call out each of those three tips in the copy of your post using formatting.
4. Provide Next Steps
When you do the hard work to get visitors to your blog, it’s important to give these visitors a clear path to take the next step toward becoming a lead. Do this by including a call-to-action for premium content in every post.
To get the best click-thru results, choose CTA’s that link to premium content that’s relevant to the subject of each post.
Photo by Flickr User Vit Brunner
About the Author:
Elizabeth Ippolito is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Plume & Post. Find more musings from Elizabeth on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.