Blogging is an effective way to expand your business. But the question of the day is, how do you turn blog visitors into loyal followers? In a nutshell, it boils down to posting relevant, educational, and even entertaining content that will attract more people to your site, as well as enable you to maintain relationships with your current customers via email, social media and even ads. But first, establish who is your audience.

Know Who Your Audience Is Before Creating Content

Your content needs to speak to a specific audience. Creating content and posting without knowing who you’re speaking to, and what their problem is won’t do you any favors. You must know where they are and what they want.

Gleaning this information will allow you to meet them at the stage of their research, where they’re seeking information to solve whatever is bothering them. Then and only then should you spend time creating information, or if you outsource the writing, edit it, and add your voice and personality to it. Once you’ve done that. Be sure to…

Make the content relevant, educational, and even entertaining – humor goes a long way.

High quality – dot your Is and cross your Ts and provide resources and materials that answer questions to help them move closer to solving their problem or making a decision.

Be consistent – you want to stay top of mind.

Promote Your Content

Posting content on your site and expecting people to find you is not enough. There’re more than 100 million blogs on the internet. A needle in a haystack scenario. So, to be found you must promote each piece of content that you post.

That means sharing it on whichever social medium your audience uses. While you can’t use them all and its’ not recommended that you do, choose the top three that’s most popular with your audience. You also have the option to outsource this piece of marketing; by doing so, you’ll reach more people.

Nevertheless, making it simple to share is a good tactic that will help to get your content out, too. So, use a social plugin and add share buttons on your posts and simply ask readers to ‘click and share.’ Make it part of your call to action.

And don’t forget to engage with your audience when they comment on your shares. You don’t want communication to be only one way. The point is to build relationships, so people don’t just read your blog, but resonate with you. As a blogger, there’s nothing more important than engaging and interacting with your audience… well, CTA’s are equally important😊

Nevertheless, you want your audience to comment and you can then engage with them by being encouraging and supportive.

In addition, place a signup box at the top and bottom of every page on your site to encourage visitors to sign up for a freebie. The purpose is to entice them to become a subscriber.

Aweber is an affordable and easy to use (drag and drop) email marketing service you can use to grow your email list, engage with your audience, and increase sales. They have 1000s of images that you can use for landing page creation and a whole lot more.

Always Provide A Call To Action (CTA)

A CTA is so, so important and there’re different ways to do it, including, asking your audience to share, like, follow, join, sign up, buy or whatever it is that you want them to do. What’s crucial, is to clearly state what action you want them to take. For example:

Ask for a Comment – A great way to get your audience to act and interact.

Be the Devil’s Advocate – Using controversy will definitely get a reaction. This can be risky, so, be mindful of the potential repercussions. But calling out a situation that makes you mad, sad, or upset will garner engagement. Do end it on a positive note, however.

Turn Your Post Into a Lead Magnet – A great way to get people to subscribe for blog updates is to use PostGopher’s WordPress plugin to create a lead magnet and build your list. That’s because it converts each and every one of your blog posts into a potential lead magnet, saving you time and money. (As you can see at the top of this post). This neat plugin is a ‘must have’ on your blog site and one of the easiest ways to maximize exposure and keep your blog in front of your visitors. Go here for instant access.

Offer a Free Discovery Call – Place a signup box within or below the post and offer a short 15/20-minute discovery call. Link to an online calendar.

Give a Special Offer – If you’ve written about a specific pain point and you are an affiliate for a product or have created one that solves that problem, make a special offer within or at the bottom of the blog post.

Offer a Freebie – Offer a freebie that’s in line with the topic of your blog post within or at the bottom of the blog post.

There’re many more ways to get your audience to act on your content, the important thing is to give them a call to action. Make it accessible and easy for them to do so and you’ll get a better response.

Give, Give And Give Information

Freebies, lead magnets, tripwires, ethical bribes, opt-ins, etc., are lucrative ways to collect email addresses. When you give away information to help people either get a step closer to solving their problem, or accomplish their goals, you’ll be rewarded with their email address and can further support them via email marketing.

Be sure to only write or speak about one problem at a time. The rationale behind this is to help them solve one small problem to avoid confusion and overwhelm. In addition, they get a taste of the quality of your work.

You won’t please everyone, so focus on one persona/customer at a time. Create a profile for your ideal customer and direct your product only to people who fit the profile. This works better than trying to appeal to everyone.

Keep it short, maybe a checklist, a spreadsheet, a simple app, a template, half a dozen images, etc. These won’t take much of your time to create but will make a huge impact.

Get Visual

People get bored without pretty and interesting things to look at. In the case of your blog, use images to expand on any points to help your audience not only understand, but take in the information. Images can brand you in such a way as to ensure that your audience enjoy your content and remember you.

You can access free and stock photos from many sources. A simple Google search will produce a variety of links. Be sure to read the licensing agreement and learn about copyright laws and fair use.

In our current time, video is one of the best ways to reach and build a loyal audience, as well as engage with them. You can create using your smartphone or invest in professional equipment.

Infographics, memes, and charts are a great way to explain hard concepts to an audience. Use software yourself. Piktochart is great, to create visual content, or hire a graphic designer, provide the data and s/he’ll create the graphic.

Canva.com, too, is a fabulous tool that you can use to create amazing graphics. Even if you’re an amateur, you can still create wonderful images, video, and graphics.

Build Authority

Another way to get more loyal blog followers is to become the go-to person in your niche. Being a guest on podcasts, TV show, guest blogging, etc., gives you the opportunity to talk about a subject matter, which demonstrates your expertise. Hence, you’ll be seen as an authority.

In addition, write long form posts – more than 1500 words in length (similar to this one). Well-organized, long content pieces show that you know your stuff and your audience will gravitate towards your content.

When you transfer your knowledge in book form, people automatically view you as an expert and successful. Don’t let writing a book scare you, if you can write a blog post, you can write a book, one page at a time. It doesn’t have to be a tome.

Speaking at public events, creating a YouTube channel, or even recording talks and publishing them on your blog is another way to build your authority. So, if you can tell a story and explain concepts in a manner that’s easily understood, use speaking to your advantage.

Summary

It all starts with knowing your audience. Understand that even if you did a lot of audience research 6 years ago, perhaps when you began your blog, demographics may stay the same, but audiences grow and change.

For example, imagine what it would be like if Dawn dishwashing soap marketed to you using the same techniques from the 1970’s. The message probably wouldn’t even reach you and if it did, it would not resonate. So, stay up to date and interact with people using their language.

Focus on bringing people back to your blog every chance you get to read your new blog posts, as well as learn about your products, services, and programs. When you have a way to interact with your audience on a regular basis through blog comments, social media, email, books, public speaking and more, it will help people become even more loyal to you as a blogger and an expert.

Of course, you don’t have to do everything at once, but as you build your blog, keep track of what works and what doesn’t. And to state the obvious, rinse, and repeat what’s working and ditch what isn’t.

© Cherry-Ann Carew

Cherry-Ann Carew is an Online Business Coach, who supports emerging business owners simplify their start-up journey and helps existing businesses scale, so that they can earn uncapped income and live life on their terms.