How To Improve Your Blog In 24 Hours

How To Improve Your Blog In 24 Hours

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If you’re looking to improve your blog then it’s time to get strategic and distance yourself from the day-to-day running of your blog a bit. Really consider your blog as an online destination. How welcoming is your site’s homepage? Is the reader interested to find out more about you? Are they attracted to your latest posts? Is there a visible call-to-action? Does the blog look ‘alive’?

If your answer to any of the above is ‘no,’ you need to head back to the drawing board and assess your blog’s priorities.

This post will point out several ways you can improve your blog in just 24 small hours.

Hours 1-4: Consider Site Design And Branding

We all judge books by their covers (even though we know we shouldn’t).

Think about it: you wouldn’t meet a new potential client without fixing your hair or putting on a smart outfit. Everything from your logo to fonts and imagery should impress visitors when they first land on your page. Anything that’s too garish or dated may make you look amateurish, but at the same time if you look too ‘sleek’, you may put certain readers off. It’s all about aligning your visual world with the blog’s overall mission and message.

Start by making subtle changes to your branding, or then outline a wishlist of what you’d like to achieve. If you are really not skilled in graphic and web design, you can outsource this task to a professional designer.

1. Give your designer some instruction, and don’t just leave it ‘up to them’.
2. Take a look at some of your favorite branded websites to get inspiration. You may not be selling iPhones, but we can all learn a thing or two from Apple’s design choices…
3. Your blog design should reflect your personality and the preferences of your readers.
4. Make sure that your overall visual language is modern, easy-to-read, and professional-looking.

Hours 5-10: SEO Content Auditing & Brainstorming

To grow a blog that becomes a valuable commercial asset, you will need to examine your existing content and ensure that it has sent all the right signals to search engines and readers. SEO is essential for capturing search traffic and repeat readers, and any blogger worth their salt needs to engage with SEO. As well as improving what you’ve already got, it’s an idea to set up optimization roadmaps and checklists for all future posts.

1. Look through all of your titles, meta descriptions and, posts and find ways to insert more long-tail keywords, or update content for the current year. The idea is to make any keywords sound natural, as well as signal to searchers that they can find all the information they need from your lovingly crafted blog posts.
2. Keyword research from Google’s Keyword Planning Tool can help you identify related search phrases you can use. It’s also a great way to plan for future content — so get your editorial calendar out and start planning!
3. Check out SEO plugins like Yoast SEO (WordPress). It provides real-time optimization data in your post editing window. Make sure all of your posts read as ‘green’ on the SEO health monitor before you publish….

Hours 11-15: Batch Plan Future Blog Posts

You need to ensure you are regularly updating your blog with great content if you ever hope to build a loyal audience. This will mean dedicating a certain amount of time to posting fresh content. This can be, at the very least, one blog post a week. The most important thing is to stick to your plan rigidly. Writing post plans in advance can be an excellent way to harness inspiration when it strikes.

1. Use your keyword research to help you plan your topics. You can also use a blog reader like Bloglovin to follow the top influencers in your sphere and keep up with the latest news and developments — a fantastic way to plan posts that are ‘on the pulse’.
2. You can choose to outsource the task of regular content writing to a freelance copywriter through a marketplace like Fiverr or Upwork — having blog templates and outlines in place will make their job a lot easier.
3. Don’t let planning sap your creativity though! Aim to contribute posts that are at least 800 words in length, as these are deemed as more ‘useful’ in Google’s search rankings. You should also include imagery, embed videos and think of original ways to tell your ‘story’ as a blogger.

Hours 16-20: Plan To Offer Something Of Value

Time to up the ante and go beyond online content creation. Can you come up with an asset you can sell, circulate, repurpose and monetize?

1. If you are an advice-giving blog, you will want to give your readers a reason to remember your name and come back to you in the future, or even refer friends to your blog. This is where a useful resource like a downloadable eBook can come in handy. If you have a bank of content on a particular subject, considering compiling it into a 40- page eBook that your readers can ‘take home with therm’. You can offer the download for free from your homepage to sweeten the deal. Getting an eBook together has never been easier. You can also list the books on Amazon or Lulu, to give yourself more avenues to attract readers to your site and content.
2. Many bloggers get into ecommerce, selling digital downloads or tie-in branded products from their blog. Some even build online stores from scratch using templates and guides, essentially transforming their blog into a content sales machine. Ecommerce is relatively easy to do, and can be a much-needed source of passive income that supplements your content efforts. (Check out this post to learn more about passive income + Pinterest).

Hours 21-24: Target Relevant Influencers

If you want to attract more readers to your posts, consider guest blogging on some well-known sites to help you get the word out.

1. Use a site like Followerwonk to help you find industry authorities in your area of expertise. Follow these accounts for a while and start interacting with their content to get your name ‘out there’. Interaction on social media = a relationship you can turn into something even better later on…
2. You can find guest blogging opportunities widely online. Search [subject keyword] + “write for us” to bring up sites looking for outside contributors. Outreach with a concise email, explaining you’re seeking to grow your blog’s readership, and see what happens next!

1. Consider allowing others to contribute to your site in return and encourage your followers to read and post comments. It’s great to give back!
2. Social media influencers can be an excellent tool for growing a blog in a very short timeframe. Keep your ‘ear to the ground’ to hunt out the big stories and go out of your way to provide well-informed content that genuinely benefits the broader community. Share your content with people of note, and wait for those shares to come in…

Building a blog takes time and patience. The best way to get your visitors to read and share your content is to give them something to get excited about. Create content that directly speaks to their needs and gives them something of real value. This will help you be remembered and hopefully, in time, help you to become a well-known blogger in your chosen space.

Patrick Foster is a freelance writer and ecommerce blogger who writes at Ecommercetips. He likes to share tips with startup owners looking to make the most of their online businesses — whether that’s through advertising, content, or good old-fashioned sales.

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