Video on building a blog with Joomla
One very common goal I hear from marketers is that they want to drive more traffic to their website. There are many ways you can accomplish this from SEO to PPC, however, one of the most effective strategies is blogging and content creation.
In this blog we are going to cover some tips and tricks to establish a strong blog and grow website traffic.
Before we dive into the tips and tricks, I wanted to start off by setting expectations. Blogging is a long-term investment and it will not be an overnight success. You need to look at each blog as an investment in your business and stay dedicated about 7-9 months in it will start taking off and your website traffic will start skyrocketing month-over-month.
It's easy to get discouraged in the beginning when you're spending time blogging with little results. You will look at your schedule and push the short term tasks in-front of the blogs, however, blogging needs to stay priority.
Blogging, just like many things in your business, is a marathon, not a sprint and once it starts taking off you will be so glad you invested the time and energy.
With that being said, here are some tips and tricks for getting you blog rocking on your Joomla website.
Get your whole team involved
Blogging shouldn't be only for the marketing team, rather, the entire team should be contributing content. Each person has their own expertise and have great information they can share to your audience.
This can sometimes be challenging to get non-marketers on board, however, if you explain the value of blogging to both the business and their position and then make it as easy as possible for them to submit a blog, it shouldn't be too much of a commitment to have them submit 1 blog per month.
Partner with others with established audiences
When you're starting off with a small blog it will be important for you to find friends or others compliment companies who you can partner with to create content. If you find partners who already have an established audience (on twitter, facebook, etc) they can go a long way to help start your audience and website traffic.
Start with interacting with them on social media to start developing a relationships. Then take some time to write up a feature blog about their products/services or even a case study that shows off their company yet still has value for your readers. Then you can start working on doing interviews with them and guest blog posts.
The goal is to, just like in dating, start off slow and work on building a relationship with them. As the relationship grows you can work more and more with them. They will likely share out the content that features them which helps engage their audience.
Make blogging a priority and don't waiver
Not to sound like a broken record, but this seriously is one of the most important pieces and is where many marketers fail. Block off three two hour chunks of time each week to write your blogs. This should be enough time to write a 500-1000 word blog and promote it.
I'd suggest doing this first thing in the morning right when you get into the office. Don't open your email or check your phone until your blogs are done and promoted. Make a commitment to those times and don't "bump" them for other business activities or meetings. The second you start bumping them is the second you start slacking on getting them done.
Create a checklist for promoting blogs
You're only half way done with your blog once it's published, now you have to promote it. Create a check list of all the places that you'd like to get your blog posted to. Include all your social media sites (schedule out multiple posts over time), content sharing sites, groups, forums and any other places online that have your target personas communicating.
It's important to not simply spam the article out into the group. This is a good way to get a lot of negative feelings built towards your blog. Rather find creative ways to help answer people's questions or get feedback about your blog.
Integrate blogs into everything you do
Each blog you post will hold some sort of value to your audience. This value will be appreciated not only for those who follow your blog, but also everyone you come in contact with.
For example: If your sales team commonly receives questions from leads, take those questions and write blogs about it. Then start sending those commonly asked questions in your lead nurturing emails further up in the process so that the lead has that question answered before they even get to the sales team.
Another example: On your products or services page, find related blogs that will help gives those interested in your products and services more information and add in a "Related Blogs" module. This will not only help educate that person but also start establishing your brand as an authority.
Not good at writing?
One common complaint I hear from marketers or business owners is that they aren't great at writing. Here are some options to consider for creating blog content if you're not great at writing:
- Use Voice Dictation Software: These days the voice dictation software that's out there is pretty accurate. Invest in a
- Video or Audio Blogs: Your blogs doesn't have to be written. You can record video or audio blogs which you can post on your blog. I would suggest having them transcribed and placing the transcription under the original video. This is good for SEO and for those who would rather read the blog.
- Hire an Freelance Editor: Start by writing a basic blog draft that includes the "meat" of the blog. Then hire a freelance editor to take that and format it into a well written blog. This will obviously cost money, however, it will also save you time and will produce a great end result.
I'm not a huge fan of paying someone else to write the entire blog. This might work in some industries where you can find good writers, however, many times freelance writers don't have the expertise and knowledge to write great blogs. It's also in-authentic in my opinion to slap your name on someone else's work.
Make it easy to subscribe
As basic as this sounds, many websites don't make it easy for readers to subscribe to blog updates via RSS, Email or Social. On each of your blogs have these options available for those who are interested in getting your content sent directly to them.
When you first start off your blog you may want to consider dedicating the bottom-of-the-blog call-to-action specifically for subscribing.
These are just a few tips for getting your blog going. The most important thing is to keep focused and dedicated to your blog for a minimum of 2-3 blogs per week for 1 year. At that point if you're not making great progress you should continue to blog but simply re-evaluate your niche, focus or strategy.
Choose a bloging platform
It's pretty easy to set up a blog using the authoring tools that ship with Joomla. If you really want to go all out, you can get a dedicated blogging software like EasyBlog ($59), or maybe even a custom content builder like K2 to add features, power and flexibility.
We especially recommend separate blogging/content extension if you plan on having a team of authors each with their own blogs.
If you have any questions or have more tips, I'd encourage you to comment below. I'd love to chat!