Do you have a blog? If you do, do you blog for yourself or for potential readers?
For potential readers, of course!
Whether you write to inspire other writers, to promote a product, or to sell a marketing service, you want what you write to be read.
How, then, can you drive more readership to your blog? You need to promote it. One tool that can help you promote your blog is Google+.
1/ Establish who you are
Of course you know who you are as a person, but do you know who you are as a blogger?
Are you an individual – just a person blogging about life, love, and what you are up to – or are you trying to brand yourself as a business?
If you don’t know who you are as a blogger then it will be nearly impossible to drive lasting traffic to your blog. You have to be able to tell people what you are about if you hope to interest them.
2/ Create a completed profile
First, you actually have to have a profile. So, create a profile on Google+. Now, if you are blogging about yourself, create a Google+ profile under your own name with your picture. However, if you are trying to brand yourself as a company – if you are blogging to create interest in a business or service – then you should create a profile for your company or business name centered around information and pictures about your company or business.
Then start filling out all those blank spaces. Remember that you are advertising yourself. Talk yourself up in your tagline. Be bold
3/ Post compelling content
Google+ is not just for connecting with people. It is for advertising yourself. Posting any old content will not get people to look at your blog. In fact, it will just get people to ignore you.
There is so much information out there, so much internet chatter. You have to make yourself stand out if you want to get anyone’s time of day. So, here are three tips to help you write the most compelling posts people will read on Google+.
Tell stories.
Now, you are probably thinking that a post on any type of social media can never contain a story – there just isn’t enough space!
Ah, but the fact of the matter is that every time you string words together to make a sentence you are creating a story.
Stories don’t have to be long. They can consist of simply a few words, maybe even a few sentences.
Do not just throw together a few sentences and think that people will find them interesting. You need to make each post about something, whether that is an interesting news article, or something fabulous that happened to you, or something fascinating that is happening in your field of business.
Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Even if your post is only three sentences long you should make sure it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It needs to have a purpose.
For example, if you are a blogger encouraging other writers to write, you shouldn’t just put up posts saying, “write more,” or “remember to write today,” or “check out this latest blog post I wrote.”
Instead, you should post a quote from a famous writer or a fun tidbit about what you are doing while writing. Take this post as an example:
This brings us to the second way to get noticed:
Use Pictures
Pictures are powerful. They do say that a picture is worth a thousand words.
People are visual. Something pretty, something bright, something shiny – those are the things that will make us stop and take a longer look. While words are important, it is pictures that make people stop and read the words that are written either below or above that picture.
Don’t Just Talk About Business
Don’t just talk about the product that you are trying to sell, the service you are providing, or the writing that you are doing. If all you do is push your blog or website people will never click on your links. Post some interesting random information – occasionally. Talk a little bit about yourself – share a very short personal story – even if you are advertising a brand rather than yourself.
People connect with other people and personal stories.
4/ Make use of Circles
Google+ has a fabulous feature called “circles.” This feature allows you to target specific audiences with certain messages.
Once you start to connect with people on Google+, you can add them to “circles.” You can have a circle for people who inspire you, one for people who are passionate about the subject you are advertising, and one for people you want to get more involved in your blog. Really, you can create any type of circle that you want.
This lets you send out several targeted messages to different audiences so you do not bore anyone. Have a look at this website for more information.
5/ Insert those links!
Now, no matter how wonderful your Google+ posts are, they will do you no good if you do not include links to your blog in them! So, make sure you include those links in your posts.
Now, to wrap up, this is how you drive traffic to your blog through Google+:
- Establish who you are
- Create a completed profile
- Post compelling content
- Make use of circles
- Insert those links
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How to Increase Traffic to Your Blog with Google+
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