Yes, blogs can drive traffic to your company’s website through search engine optimization strategies (find out what types of strategies you should utilize with a Free SEO analysis), but once people arrive at your site, what keeps them there?
Try turning the equation around. What sites do you regularly visit, and why do you visit them? Chances are, there’s something of value to you on those sites. You either find entertainment value, information, solutions to problems, reference material, or other content that enriches your life and helps you out in some way.
Your mission is to determine what your target audience finds valuable. Once you know, you can provide value to your readers and keep them coming back. Learn how to create real value with your blog content with an inbound marketing company in Brooklyn.
Who Is Your Target Audience?
Knowing and understanding your target audience is essential for successful inbound marketing. If you’re going to provide value to your readers, you’ve got to know who they are and what is important to them. Basically, there are two main categories of people who fit into your target audience:
- People who will pay you
- People who influence the people who will pay you
The people who will pay you are obviously the most important people in your target audience, but don’t underestimate the power of the people who influence them. For example, if you sell products that children use, you need to reach their parents (the ones with the credit cards), but you also need to appeal to the children who will ask for your products.
In B2B situations, you’ll need to appeal to the purchaser and also the person directly affected by the purchase. For example, if you sell payroll software, you’ll need to appeal to the business owner and also the person in charge of payroll.
What Does Your Target Audience Need?
Once you have identified your target audience, you’ll need to find out what they need. There are several ways to do this. The simplest way is to ask them.
If you already have an email list or consistent traffic on your website, blog, or social media accounts, post or send a survey asking what your prospects and customers need and want. As you sift through the answers, you will probably come across a common theme.
You can also look at your existing blog posts and web pages and see which ones have had the most views. The topics covered in your most popular posts should be examined. Extract keywords from these posts, and use them as topics for future content.
How Can You Make Your Content Truly Valuable?
You’ve identified your target audience and found out what they’re looking for. Now you just need to create valuable blog content that will help you to get new clients. Here are some strategies that may help you:
- Optimize for mobile. More and more people are using their phones for everyday web research and entertainment. Is your blog optimized for mobile users? If not, you may be missing out on people who need what you offer but who are turned off by your cumbersome website.
- Check out your competitors’ FAQs. Frequently asked questions get to the heart of a business or industry, and it can be very enlightening to find out what questions are posted on your competitions’ websites. Consider using some of the questions and answers as topics for your blog.
- Don’t neglect the comments section. People often ask follow-up questions in the comments section of blog posts. Instead of posting the answer in the comments section (where it may become buried by other comments), write a whole new blog post explaining the answer to the question.
Providing valuable blog content can help you to get new clients.
About Park Slope Softworks: Park Slope Softworks is a Digital Marketing Agency, Specializing in Inbound Marketing services, that helps businesses get new leads and grow their businesses by creating targeted content and exposing the right audience to it. You can reach us at 646-519-3534 or send us an email to: enqueries@parkslopesoftworks.com
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