Breathing new life into a mediocre blog part 2

Last time we discussed planning your blog revival. We talked about asking yourself the necessary questions to put you in the mindset of blogging successfully. So let’s move on and develop the plan further.

Learn the skills

Learning new skills has a double meaning here. If you’re looking to revive your own blog, it means looking at how to use your blogging platform, how to write for the web, how to engage an audience, different methods of engagement and taking a look at how your competitors are doing it.

If you’re considering working with Coastal Content, that’s our job. We need to learn about your company, values, goals, audience, products, services and what you want to say. The more we know, the better we can represent you online.

Once you learn the basics, it’s important to stay current. There’s no time to rest on your laurels when you’re a blog writer!

Set a schedule

Whether we like it or not, we are creatures of habit. We eat at the same time, sleep at the same time, take coffee at the same time and so on. When you’re a blog writer, you need to bear that in mind. You need to put a schedule together that lets your audience know when to expect new content. You then need to stick with it.

TV schedules are set for a reason. We all like to know when our favourite show is on and get annoyed when something happens to interrupt that. A blogging schedule is exactly the same. Your audience wants to know when to expect the next update and will be disappointed if you don’t meet their expectations.

Interact with your audience

A blog is a discussion, not a lecture. It’s a two-way street that should encourage interaction from readers. Not every post will illicit responses, but the majority should be written with it in mind. Give your audience an opportunity to join in the conversation and they will repay you.

Newsworthy posts, current affairs, news and opinion are all great blog post types that can get people talking. If you can tie any of these into your niche, all the better. Write them well and your audience takes over. They will share, develop and comment on the post until it takes on a life of its own.

Rinse, improve and repeat

Once you have a schedule, the method of delivering consistent, quality blog posts and the time to interact with the audience, you have the makings of a successful blog. It takes time and effort, but it can rise from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix soon enough.

Once you’re in the swing of things, keep learning, analyse what is working and build on it. Not everything works, but by continually refining what you do, you can improve, engage more and rebuild that flagging blog.

Of course, if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, you can always call Coastal Content. As leading blog writers in Cornwall, we would be happy to help!