Anyone can create a blog but making it give a return on investment ( ROI) is another story!

Billions of potential customers are on the internet and all types of businesses are harnessing it for profit. A blog is one of the highly recommended tools because its cost-effective. Its not only affordable but performs well. For example its ability to produce fresh content makes it a darling of search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. However, technological performance doesn’t necessarily guarantee paying customers in the absence of an effective strategy. This is why there are many people who have blogs and other types of websites but derive no profit out of it. Yet a blog being such powerful technology if its coupled with an effective strategy can produce a return on investment. An effective strategy should address two areas namely content and distribution.

A content strategy covers what you should blog about and how you blog what you decide to blog about. A distribution strategy focuses on the burden of exposing the content to as many people as possible using paid and free social media methods. My blogging experience has humble beginnings. I didn't go to school to study this but a kind friend taught me the basics. I picked it up from there and with determination I transformed that basic blog into a strategically sound one that has been capable of contributing its own fair share of paying property customers over the years. I have also managed to  package this experiential knowledge as products that my blogging clients in various areas like health and wellness, legal practice, real estate and construction see as value addition to their various businesses. Here is some of the information about content and distribution strategies I share with my clients you may find to be worthwhile.

Content strategy

What  to blog about?

Whether or not you will make money is determined by first and foremost what you blog about. Why? Because what you publish (videos, articles, images etc ) must be what people are willing to pay for. So the question “ What to blog about?” becomes a million dollar one and its answer may be as good as acquiring a license to print money. So what is the best way to determine what to blog about? There can be more questions than answers because what people are willing to pay for must also be what you are good at. To solve this problem the following diagram is very helpful. 

This diagram helps to solve our challenge by telling us that what to blog about is determined by the intersection of two sets. One consist what you are good at and another what people are willing to pay for. So this intersection helps to determine what becomes your niche. I believe this diagram can help different types of professionals whatever they do, you name it - music, sports, banking, real estate, legal practice, medicine, construction, network marketing etc .

How to blog ?

Under content strategy the first important question to answer is What to blog about? and the second one is How to blog?. The later is about how you present your information or content . This matters because a site must be engaging or sticky such that visitors stay for long. There is a technique that ensure that this also happen. A site does not become engaging automatically. I will give you the first thing that can make or break your content's ability to be sticky or engaging. That thing is summarized in one word called Attention. 

Attention
No matter what format your content is in its heading should attract the attention of your target market. Here are some ways to do it;

a. Ask questions

b. Use a proverb

c. Use a perplexing statement

Distribution strategy

There are paid and free ways of getting human traffic to your site. 

Paid method

Sponsored Link
This is when a website with high traffic like a national newspaper make a link from it to your blog. The newspaper writes about your field like say Health and Wellness and if its visitors click this statement the link direct them straight to your blog. National newspapers have high traffic volumes so this can be worthwhile !

Free method

Brand advocacy

The biggest disadvantage of paid methods is that when the money runs out so does the visitors and many do not have the money to start with. This take us to free methods that operate through social media like Facebook and Linkedin. Social media is free so the only critical thing that is needed is a strategy to harness it. Unless we want to reinvent the wheel lets us start by talking about the strategy others across the world have successfully used namely brand advocacy.

Brand advocacy is when a center of influence like a close friend, relative, customer or employee of a business “ proactively shares about the company to their networks via social, word of mouth, email, or through content without any incentive other than their love for the brand. You may have also seen or heard the term “brand ambassador,” which is a pretty interchangeable meaning with a brand advocate. But a brand advocate or “brand ambassador” will rep your brand, show support, and even influence the buying habits of others.” https://everyonesocial.com/blog/brand-advocacy/