5 Top Blogging Strategies

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Hemingway was once challenged to write a complete story in six words. That little story you just read about baby shoes for sale was it.

Could you write about one of your products or services in six words? Go on... give it a go! You may be surprised at just how much you can say in just a few words.

I was once asked by one of my students to demonstrate how using the following blogging strategies could work for her. She was a supplier of promotional mugs and was finding writing continuously about mugs to be difficult. Together we sat down and and put it all together.

Write Keyword Rich Headlines That Make a Promise

The headline of your blog post is the most important part of your article.

I read an interesting statistic on the Copyblogger website that stated 8 out of 10 readers will read a headline but only 2 out of 10 readers will actually click on the headline and read further.
That is how important your title is!

The title of this article is "5 Top Blogging Strategies." That is what you will get when you read this article. That is my promise. That promise is what presumably enticed you to read further.

Get the picture?

My student (who also happens to be my supplier) started her promotional mug blog post out with the title "Promotional Mugs - Where to Find The Lowest Prices." When she wrote this title she knew she needed to deliver. The reader would want to know where to find the lowest prices for promotional mugs!

If she didn't deliver she would lose the reader's interest and they would switch off.

Engage Your Reader

What makes you think deeply about a subject? Questions often make me stop and think about a subject more thoroughly. How about you?

My student began her article with one of the most powerful words for engaging your audience - imagine.

She wrote "Imagine losing one of your best customers to the competition because you were far too expensive for the same promotional mug."

Being in the promotional gifts industry myself, I would not want to contemplate such a situation! By engaging me as a reader in this way she drew me further into the body of her article.

Brevity Matters!

Try to keep you paragraphs and sentences short and to the point. People are busy. They do not have loads of time to immerse themselves into a longwinded blog. Studies have shown that when presented with a large paragraphs reader will turn off.

Present your information to your reader in short easily read bits. Short paragraphs are easy to scan for information which is what many of your readers will be doing.

Tell a Story

When I am writing blog posts about the promotional gifts I sell, I like to tell stories about how they have worked for my customers. Telling a story is another way of engaging your reader and helping them to see the benefits of using your products or services.

In this article I have touched on how one of my students has used the strategies presented here in her own blog post. Since taking on this advice, she has introduced her own readers to many different success stories that are both engaging and inspiring.

She has offered them ideas that they can use in their own marketing.

Use a Popular Quotation to Strengthen Your Point

I started this blog post with a well known quotation or story by Hemingway. It helps strengthen my argument that brevity is important. I also used it to engage you the reader. I asked you to try to write short six word posts about your products and/or services.

Finding the perfect quotation for your articles is not always easy and should never be forced. If the connection between your topic and the quotation are not obvious, don't use the quotation!

I hope I have given you a few ideas to use in your blog posts. These strategies have worked for many bloggers and they can work for you too.

Have I left anything out that you feel should have been included? Do you have any blogging strategies that work for you? Would you care to share your ideas and experiences here by leaving a comment?