"Vista's Little Voice": How to create an interesting blog
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Hello everyone, I’m Vista, nice to meet you in the air.
In Episode 42, I once talked to you about why I still run a blog now? At that time, some friends also discussed with me some issues regarding running their blogs. So, in today’s program, I want to continue this topic and continue to talk to you about how to create an interesting blog? What details do you need to pay attention to when setting up and operating a blog?
Many people may think that this is the age of social media. Even if the reach of your Facebook fan page is very poor and the fever is showing signs of subside, you should at least open an Instagram or YouTube account!
Many people have asked me: “Isn’t blog outdated a long time ago? Why do we still bother to run it?” In fact, I have never thought that blogs have declined. Even in today’s era when marketing and publicity are becoming more and more important, blogs are an important role in promoting content marketing or building personal brands.
Friends who know me know that I not only encourage friends who want to build a personal brand to write blogs, but I also often encourage manufacturers who are interested in content marketing to start running corporate blogs. The reason is simple. Not only is this a good way to improve your writing skills and practice expressing your opinions, but more importantly, blogging is like a window that can help you break through the stratosphere and open the way to the world stage.
Don’t think that if you just silently write articles on your official website or blog, there may be no traffic and no one will see it. In fact, this is not the case. Due to the network connection, under the guidance of search engines such as Google and Baidu, as long as the article content you produce has unique viewpoints and value, it may be searched, linked or cited by others at any time.
Scobo, the author of “Commercial Nude Revolution,” once said: “Blogging ends one era and opens another. In this new era, companies will not succeed just by talking to customers. They must also listen to the voices of customers.”
Blogs are not a one-way communication tool. They also have the functions of community, interaction and connection, which can reverse the original way of disseminating information only through mass media and shorten the distance between readers. In addition to the convenience of transmitting information and opinions, blogs are naturally also very suitable as a channel for business communication. Therefore, the purpose of running a blog is not to chase large amounts of traffic, but to provide different perspectives and let people know your values, priorities and aspirations.
As Thomas Freeman, the author of “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Prospering in the Accelerating Age” (https://bit.ly/3sLD4I9), said, “Each blog post is like turning on a light bulb in the reader’s head, illuminating a certain issue, making the reader see the issue in a new light, or touching their hearts and making them feel stronger or completely different.”
Therefore, we not only express our opinions through blogs, but also interact with readers. This is the most precious thing.
Businesses do not need to spend too much budget and resources to run a blog, but they can gain a lot of benefits. For example, you can write blog articles to show that your company is an expert in its industry and that it can provide customers with useful information and value. What’s even better is that you can sell products through content marketing and collect potential customer lists and emails, ultimately achieving the goal of increasing exposure and improving brand image and popularity.
Content marketing is different from traditional advertising. It often requires a period of accumulation before we can obtain the benefits we want. Similarly, running a blog also requires a period of hard work before it can bear fruit. But no matter what, it’s never too late to start!
If you can build a blog well and run it carefully as a stage for yourself to express your voice to the outside world, then this blog can not only become a good channel for marketing and communication, but you can also tightly capture the hearts of the target audience through informal direct dialogue. In other words, the essence of blog management is actually a kind of “trust marketing” that exchanges heart for heart.
As for how do we start building and operating a blog? I suggest you “begin with the end in mind” and think carefully about the purpose of running a blog for yourself or your company. Whether it is for promotion, exposure, collecting lists, or selling products, you can outline the market and target audience according to the purpose, and then use the [Content Calendar] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lDeVlziQS0) to plan and manage your company’s content strategy.
When creating an editorial plan for your blog, don’t forget to put potential customers and readers first, and review your company’s marketing and business goals from time to time to try to maintain consistency and create a unique style. I introduced you to the content calendar before, and you can also use it for planning.
In addition to using the content calendar to formulate an editorial plan, I also recommend that you update the articles on your blog frequently and maintain a fixed update frequency. Then, interact more through leaving messages, communicate with the readers of the blog, and even jointly plan and create content, which is the so-called “co-creation”. I think that will be more meaningful and valuable!
When planning the direction of your blog, what content theme should you choose? Here I can give you some suggestions: First, please write about topics that you are really interested in or passionate about; secondly, you can start from your professional field and write some articles that are helpful to people. Finally, if you have the spare capacity, you can also think about integrating today’s global trends and mainstream.
Writing blog articles is indeed helpful for the exposure and promotion of personal or corporate brands, but it does not mean that it will be fine once the articles are written well. It also requires professionalism as the basis and continuous input and output. When you have time, I also suggest that you think about it in another person’s shoes: What kind of content are people interested in or need to read? What keywords are often searched by many people?
In this visual-first era, I also suggest that when writing a blog article, you might as well choose to insert one or two pictures to decorate the layout. You can use photos you usually take, or make good use of the resources of CC0 Gallery. For example, I often go to websites such as Unsplash or Pexels to search for suitable pictures. I can find many beautiful and meaningful pictures by just entering keywords.
Here, I would also like to suggest that you usually have some knowledge and understanding of the subject matter of your writing, so that you can quickly enter keywords to find suitable pictures.
As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” If you can choose a suitable picture carefully, it will definitely add a lot of color to your article! Judging from my own writing habits, I will complete the tasks of selecting pictures, editing pictures, and compressing picture files within five minutes. All processes, including collecting materials, writing articles and submitting manuscripts, can be completed within half an hour to an hour.
In addition, the selection of blog background themes is indeed a science. Here, I also provide a few guidelines for your reference:
First of all, don’t just choose a gorgeous theme, but think about whether the theme is simple, refreshing, and easy to read? Does the page load quickly? Does it support Responsive Web Design (RWD)? At the same time, you should also consider whether the style of the setting theme echoes the theme of your article?
The experience of using a blog often represents the spirit or characteristics of the blogger or the company itself, so we need to look at it more carefully. In addition to considering the color and style of the theme, we also need to consider the loading speed of the blog’s web page. The themes of some blogs are powerful, but tend to slow down the overall speed. This is not ideal and will have a negative impact on search engine optimization. According to statistics, if the page loading time exceeds 4 seconds, the user’s bounce rate will increase significantly. If you are not sure about the loading speed of your blog, you can also use [Google’s web page performance testing tool] (https://pagespeed.web.dev) to test it first!
Secondly, given that everyone is now accustomed to using smartphones or tablets to access the Internet, it is also very important whether the theme of the blog supports responsive web design. In other words, if you can choose a suitable background theme, it will not only make people feel fresh and fresh, but also allow readers to quickly grasp the key points, and it will also help convey and share important information.
I think you can understand the importance of content marketing. Overall, running a blog is like participating in a marathon with no end in sight. What everyone competes with is not only writing skills and speed, but also enthusiasm, perseverance and patience. It is important to remember that the mission of content marketing is not only to produce high-quality content, but also to create and retain customers. Therefore, even if your blog is well-known or has huge traffic, it may not be able to drive direct revenue. Only gaining potential customers through content marketing is the real key to success.
Today, we talked a lot about setting up and running a blog. We hope it will be of some help to you! If you have any special needs for the blog or if you have any questions, please leave a message to discuss with me!
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Further reading
- “The Little Voice of Vista”: How to write an excellent food journal
- “Vista’s Little Voice”: Why I still run a blog
- “Vista’s Little Voice”: How to find your own keywords
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