Would you send your child to a university or school without a library?

The university or a school could have all the modern amenities in the world and yet not be reputed at all if it doesn’t host a library. A library is where people can gather vast amounts of information and answer their never ending train of query. Without it, the entire institution looks unprofessional and frankly, uninviting. This is essentially what a blog does for a website. It serves as a virtual library for the institution that is your company.

But having a blog integrated into your website just for the sake of it doesn’t prove useful; much like having a library with no books. A blog needs to be taken care of, like an infant; with a lot of TLC and some time off your hands, your blog could be the best thing to have ever happened to your business.

So, here are 5 extremely effective yet quick and stress-free ways to successfully market your blog;

1. Content, Content, Content.

A constantly updated blog is a happy blog. To ensure your blog gets a following, you should ensure the people have something to read within. Taking some time out of your day to sit down and write useful content or update out of date content can go a long way and in the long run prove very profitable. The content you write can be of an arbitrary topic on your mind, but, writing about specific topics aimed at a niche audience is always better. This will ensure the people come to your blog to actually read the content and not just scroll over. For instance, list and how-to posts are proven topics to increase traffic to your site. Another crucial point to keep in mind while writing new content is to wrap it with a relevant context. Your message should be understood the way you envisioned it. Guestposts.biz have a great article about effortlessly merging content and context; check it out here.

2. Befriend Social Media.

In the competitive realm of blogging, social media is one of the greatest tools to have in your arsenal. The absolute power of social media is beyond our reach; but as a blogger, that is a good thing. This means that apart from you sharing and promoting your own work, if liked by your audience, they could share it individually too, giving your blog and your company exposure beyond the reaches of your advertising campaigns. Social media is not limited to the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; the use of small time and niche podia can prove incredibly useful if the content of your blog is exactly what the audience is looking for.

3. Comments.

Ensure that your blog posts have a feedback option, where your audience members can voice their opinions. Feedback is always worthy, whether appreciative or criticizing in nature. The next step in connecting with your audience is to reply to their concerns and comments regularly. This creates a level of intimacy with the reader that eventually turns into loyalty. This step is not necessarily one way. You can comment on other external blogs while promoting your own. You could provide your felicitations or constructive criticism; and if the blog post is in a similar ball park to what you write about, you could drop a link to your blog post, thereby, in theory, increasing your viewership.

4. SEO.

Your blog will not drive traffic to itself. It needs to be augmented to turn up on top of the search results in leading search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo! Effective SEO is the way to achieve this. Using WordPress for your blog is the easiest way to optimize your search engine results. WordPress uses several plugins that make the entire process of SEO that much easier to understand and implement. Yoast SEO plugin is one of the most popular in the selection offered by WordPress.

5. Advertising.

Once your blog starts to create come buzz, you can move into advertising. Bloggers use advertisements to get some extra revenue. Companies within the niche of your blog topic, will advertise on your blog; your payment will come in the form of clicks, as in, for every time a user clicks on one of the ads posted, you get a little extra cash at the bank. This method is called Pay-per-Click; and there are several organizations that provide this service.

Some reputable ones include;
• Google AdWords
• BuySellAds
• Twitter Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Google+ Ads

#Blogging has proven to be the cause of the increased popularity of many organizations and individuals across the world. So, if your university doesn’t have a library or your company doesn’t have a blog, get one now; because as a potential customer, having either makes you look more reputed and trustworthy; and in today’s rat race of a world, trust and reputation leads the light.