By the time you finish reading this sentence, a dozen blogs will have been created across the globe. Most of these people are not professional bloggers, and the vast majority of these blogs will turn into ghost sites within a few months. There are many reasons for this, but one is that these new bloggers don’t understand how to get traffic to their site, and what sorts of traffic they should be trying to attract. The reality is, sloppy posts are created all the time, but do they draw traffic? If so, is it the sort of traffic you want?
What Defines a Sloppy Post
It’s hard to say that there are “wrong things” to do when you’re blogging. After all, most techniques, voices, and approaches will appeal to some audience. However, the real difference between a professional entry and a sloppy one is that the professional posts reflect an understanding of the intended audience. Bloggers spend hours on their computers, creating curated content just for their readers. On the other hand, someone who is blogging in a pell mell way, and thus probably won’t be blogging for long, is clueless as to who they want to attract. The important thing here isn’t necessarily what you do. It’s how consciously you do it. There’s no reason you should leave your audience appeal to the luck of the draw.
All Content Will Get Traffic
Adding new content provides you with more opportunities to get traffic, influences how frequently the search engines check back to your site, and can develop new inbound links to aid in your organic ranking. The more useful and professionally written the content is, the more likely it is to get positive attention, including those incredibly valuable links. However, the reality is that any content will have a positive impact on your traffic. If you’re looking for long term results as opposed to a slightly higher number on your analytics page, you’ll need to look beyond the amount of traffic you’re getting. You need to figure out what sort of traffic it is that you want.
Attracting Your Audience Through Terminology
The first question you need to ask yourself is for whom are you creating this blog. If the answer is “it’s for me,” then enjoy your blogging hobby, but don’t expect to make money out of it. If your blog is for your audience, you have to determine what sort of audience that is. Are you looking to connect with industry experts, novices with a casual interest in the subject, or some other group that falls between these extremes? Each of these groups will understand different sorts of posts, and will use different terminology in the search for information. If you want to attract industry experts, feel free to use industry-specific language and technical terms. If you care about connecting with the “newbies” in the field, use long, descriptive phrases to illustrate your points. Not only are these easier for them to understand, but you’re more likely to “accidentally” pick up on the keywords that they are plugging into the search engines.
