There are more than 500 million blogs on the internet today. With a statistic like that, how do you stand out? The good news is that a little bit of know-how will go a long way. In this guide, we’ll share 6 blogging strategies to build an audience for your website in 2019 and beyond. 

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1. Network with Other Bloggers

A lot of new bloggers make the mistake of thinking that other bloggers are their competition. While it’s true you might be competing for the same group of readers, you can use these other bloggers to your advantage with some smart networking. Unless you’re in a tiny niche, odds are there are already other bloggers talking about similar topics. 

By engaging with these other bloggers through social networks and their own blogs, you can build strong connections that matter. Not only will these bloggers be likely to recommend your content or link to your blog, but you’ll have an option for guest posting in the future. This is essential for showing you’re trustworthy in your niche. 

2. Publish Relevant Content

This sounds simple, but it’s actually the most important part of being a successful blogger. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to publish content your audience actually wants to read. Believe it or not, your blog can’t just be a public diary to post your daily musings. 

If you want to build an audience, you need to provide real value. Your content needs to be relevant for a specific, targeted audience, not just everyone. For example, if you blog about senior living marketing, you’ll need to include relevant information that can be used for businesses in this market. This will show you have value and that you’re serious about growing your readership. 

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3. Guest Blog on Top Blogs

Remember the networking tip we talked about earlier? Here’s why it’s so important. If you can identify blogs in your niche that already have an engaged, active audience, you can post on these to boost your own blog. 

To do this, start by connecting with the owner of this blog or become a member of the community. Learn the writing style and what’s needed to write a great guest post. From there, pitch your idea to the blogger and explain why it would be a good fit. Finally, follow through with a high-quality guest post. 

4. Promote Your Blog Posts

As we mentioned before, you can’t just click publish and expect readers to find your blog. You need to make sure you’re promoting your blog posts actively. The best way to do this is through social media. 

Your audience is likely already on social media, so make sure you’re active on social media as well and engaging with this community. Posting on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and other social media websites will help your audience know when there’s a new post. 

5. Build an Email List

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your audience in a new way. Collecting emails of your best readers by offering something they’d like such as a free download, ecourse, or additional content is a great way to provide more value. 

Today, 81% of small businesses rely on email is their primary customer acquisition channel. That means its a powerful tool you can use to spread awareness about recent posts, products, or other important messages. 

6. Focus on User Experience

Last but not least, once you land a good number of users, you need to make sure they’re willing to come back. You do that by providing valuable content and by creating a trustworthy user experience. A positive user experience shows your readers you take your blog seriously, and it makes the time spent on your page much more enjoyable.

What matters when it comes to the user experience? Things like mobile-friendly design, fast load times, and easy to read text are all main factors. It’s about making the reading experience as simple and enjoyable as possible. 

Build a Powerful Blog

Now that you know the best ways to build an audience, it’s time to go out there and get started. These tips are so simple anyone can follow them. What are you waiting for?

From publishing relevant content to creating a user experience readers can trust, these things make all the difference. It can be hard to stand out in a sea of so many blogs, so it’s time to push your blog to the next level.

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B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

This is blog post number 522.

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This video is called, What is the True Value of 30K Social Media Followers? By Mike Pitt. This is video number 228 and blog post number 448. Subscribe to the channel  . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

In this Mike Pitt discusses the true value of a Social Media following of over 30K followers.

This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and others who use Content Marketing and Social Media to promote their B2B business or organisation.

Social Media Followers

If you active on any social media platform you’ll know there is a place where your number of followers is displayed. People with a lot influence in their sectors or specialism tend to have a lot of social media followers. Focusing on the number of followers you have is wrong, of course. Instead concentrate on building meaningful relationships and interactions with the new people that you meet. After being asked by a friend, I worked out how many social media followers I have, then I considered the true value of 30K Social Media followers. You can hear my thoughts in the video.

If you like this post you will also like, How do you Manage Your Social Media Team

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Instagram

Subscribe to

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Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 448.

The post What is the True Value of 30K Social Media Followers? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This video is called, How to Evaluate Your Content Before Publishing By Mike Pitt. This is video number 200 and blog post 418. You can subscribe to our channel  . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London. In this video Mike Pitt gives gives guidance on how to evaluate your Content before publishing on any platform. This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and and everyone using YouTube to market their services business.

Evaluate Your Content

If you are using Content Marketing to promote your business you must evaluate your content prior to publishing it. In the video I discuss the key question that you need to ask yourself before you hit publish. Do this every time you publish on your key Social Media platforms for your business and you will increase your levels of engagement with your audience. If you have enjoyed this post you will also enjoy,  UK B2B: Which is the Most Effective Content Marketing Channel?

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 418.

The post How to Evaluate Your Content Before Publishing appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

This video is called What’s the Difference Between Branded Content & Content Marketing By Mike Pitt. This is video number 196 and blog post 415. You can  . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London. In this video Mike Pitt explains the difference between Branded Content & Content Marketing. This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and anyone marketing to a B2B audience.

Branded Content and Content Marketing

I created this video and blog post after I saw on LinkedIn that a senior marketing professional was confusing Branded Content with Content Marketing. Although the terms are very similar their meanings are quite different. In this video I use two examples of branded Content, the Red Bull Air Race and the Nike Academy to demonstrate what Branded Content is in practice. I then use the work that we do at Marketing Fundamentals Ltd to explain what Content Marketing is. I also summarise the scenarios in which both are usually used. If you have enjoyed this post you will also enjoy,  UK B2B: Which is the Most Effective Content Marketing Channel?

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 415.

The post What’s the Difference Between Branded Content & Content Marketing? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

400 Blog Posts

What remains constant is the benefits that businesses receive when they start delivering value to their audience in the form of a regular blog. Yes, blogging requires planning and must be well executed but it is definitely worth the investment in time and resource. For a quick flashback to my thoughts when we reached 300 blog posts read this post, What did we Learn from Publishing 300 Blog Posts? We can help you reach your blogging milestones too.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. Want to discuss this some more?

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 401. At blog post number 400 84% (336) had been written by me and 16% (64) had been written by other people.

The post Thanks For Reading 400 Blog Posts appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

A recent graduate asked me the following question, how should I start a Digital Marketing career? I think  my answer to her will be helpful to others with a similar ambition so I have chosen to share here.

How to Start a Digital Marketing Career

Digital Marketing is a highly competitive and fast moving sector. Any job application that you make will face stiff competition from many other candidates. You must do your research into the industry and keep updated. In addition, you must do specific research into the company you are applying to. Find out all you can about the company, its history and the individuals you will meet if selected for interview. Successfully completed Internships or work experience placements will boost your credibility in the minds of potential employers but you will still need to do more.

How to Set Yourself Apart

So what did I advise the recent graduate who contacted me? I told her that if you want to stand out against other applicants start a blog or a YouTube channel. To be more specific, start and regularly publish or upload new content to your blog or YouTube channel.  This will set you apart. It is relatively easy to establish an online presence using Social Media but most people do not take the additional step of publishing their own unique content on a blog or YouTube channel.  When you do this you are demonstrating your desire to work in the industry by taking action rather than by waiting for someone to give you an opportunity.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO – Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 375.

The post How to Start a Digital Marketing Career appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

Publish Content Consistently

1. Content Planning

Faced with a blank screen and a blinking cursor many marketing staff struggle to create blog posts that are of value to their audience on a consistent basis. Instead of approaching each post as a new cause for panic  schedule regular content planning sessions with your team. The objective of these sessions is to brainstorm future blog post titles. Each session should produce between 10-15 blog post titles. In many instances this will be enough for the next Quarter. You could take this a step further by adding the future titles to your website as a content calendar. There are a WordPress plugins that will help you to create a content calendar.

2. Diarise Blog Writing

Treat blog writing as a meeting that is scheduled in your work diary. Allow sufficient time to research and write a blog post at the same time each week. Success comes from establishing the right habits and allocating a weekly time slot for blog writing is a good habit to create. Writing a blog post will become part of your workflow. If you include guest contributors or colleagues from other departments ensure that they adhere to the established workflow.

3. Publish Day 

Publish your blog post on the same day each week or if you are publishing multiple blog posts per week stick to the same publishing schedule. Your readers will come to expect your posts and when you analyse your web traffic you will notice that trafic spikes on the days that you publish fresh content.  Remember that the publish day does not have to be the same as the writing day, allow enough time to review and edit your post(s) before publishing.

4. Pomodoro Technique

Sometimes you will not be able to write a blog post in one writing session. Perhaps the subjects in the post covered are extremely complex or you are covering many sides of a public debate. One way to prevent the writing task becoming overwhelming is to use the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro technique is a time mangement tactic that breaks down tasks into twenty-five minute blocks and separates them with a short break. It was developed by developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. It is a great way of working through a complicated blog post or a large copywriting project. You might compete a post in 4 Pomodoros (4 x 25 minutes), for example.

Start using these tactics right away and you will find yourself able to publish content consistently. I would love to hear about your progress so feel free to leave an update in the comments section below.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

We hope you find this information useful.

Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:
How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 361.

The post How do you Publish Content Consistently? 4 Tips appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

Content Marketing & Social Media Training

We have had conversations with businesse people who have been told by their respective board of directors to cut back on external expenditure because of business uncertainty. If you are asking your existing marketing staff to take full responsibility for Content Marketing & Social Media the best thing you can do is to ensure that they are trained to do so.

I run Content Marketing & Social Media Training Days for businesses. The benefits for your staff are as follows:

Benefits of Training

• Staff will be able to plan and write their own content

• Staff will have a thorough understanding of the merits of all of the key Social Media platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)

• The training day includes practical exercises and tasks for your staff to complete

• Overview of key video platforms: YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine

• After the Training Day your staff will have access to my online training materials.

Here’s what people have said about the workshops and training days.

Client Testimonials

A training day starts at 10 am and finishes at 4.30pm and can be held at your offices or our offices at Somerset House.

The cost for the Content & Social Media Training Day is £280 per person. To book a training day email me here  .

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

We hope you find this information useful.

Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:
How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post post number 358.

The post Do Your Staff Need Content Marketing & Social Media Training? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This is blog post 334. This blog post is an answer I gave on Quora to the question, What are bloggers struggling with? I decided to share it here because I believe it will give encouragement to B2B bloggers and marketing professionals who work with agencies to create great content.
—

Hello.
Thanks for the question.
There are a number of issues that aspiring bloggers struggle with on a regular basis and I will list them below. I make the distinction of aspiring bloggers because more established bloggers have usually overcome these obstacles.

1. Fear
A fear of putting themselves “out there” on a regular basis. Of course, they rarely admit to fear. It is usually articulated as the fact they don’t have enough time or something similar.

2. Failure to Establish Blogging Habits
Bloggers must schedule regular recurring time slots weekly, twice weekly or daily (dependent on their business model). Trying to blog when you have spare time or when you can does not work. Commit to it and make blog creation part of your weekly routine.

3. Fear of Running Out of Things to Say
A very real fear for many. I have a blogging methodology that I use with all my agency’s clients and individuals who have been through my training courses. My methodology offers a solution to this fear. I will summarise it by saying, create an approach where you are planning / conceptualising more than just the next blog post. Try to think in terms of the next 10-15 blog posts. Once you have momentum you will never run out of ideas. If you are interested in my resources you could click the Amazon link in my bio.

4. Optimising Content from an SEO Perspective.
The necessary actions to optimise content for SEO are not obvious for bloggers and learning about SEO is not always something they want to do even though they know they should.

5. Lack of Patience – What do you mean? I’ve got to keep on going? I’ve written ten good blog posts. Where is my web traffic and sponsorship deals?

6. Unrealistic Expectations –
Instant gratification is so common in society people have unrealistic expectations of how soon they will see results from blogging. If you are prepared to put the work in, you will build an audience and opportunities for monetisation will present themselves.

Be consistent and keep at it!

If you have enjoyed this post you might also like,  Is it too Late to Start a Business Blog?

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

I hope you find this information useful.

Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Quora

Subscribe to

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Buy our book!

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This is blog post number 334.

Mike

The post What are Bloggers Struggling With? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

‘ This is a great question. I had very realistic expectations when I started blogging professionally in 2010. I was working for a large international advertising agency as a consultant at the time I started my blog and knew that it would take time to build an audience. The results were much better than I expected. Within a few weeks of blogging I had people commenting on my posts on my website and responding to the posts when I tweeted them on Twitter. I was starting a lot of conversations and people appreciated that I was creating great content rather than just retweeting other people’s content.
I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly people responded and can only attribute that to the content because the website template I was using at the time was horrible! Haha. In hindsight I was fortunate that my consultancy work meant that I had a ‘long runway’ with regard to the blog. I didn’t need to earn money from it straightaway and I was able to develop what I refer to as my Blog Voice as I wrote each week. At that point I had committed to writing a post per week.

Advice for Bloggers 

My advice to you is this:

1. Commit to a regular weekly time slot to write your posts and also a regular time to publish them. Your audience will come to expect them and you’ll see spikes in web traffic on these days.
2. Do not be discouraged, at one point every blogger in the world has had the thought that no-one is reading their posts. In most cases, this is incorrect. It’s just that only a small percentage of people confirm they have read your posts or leave a comment.
3. Good luck with your blog and if you’d like me read one of your posts message me and I will give you honest feedback.’

If you have enjoyed this post you might also like,  Is it too Late to Start a Business Blog?

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

I hope you find this information useful.

Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Quora

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Buy our book!

Follow Mike on Twitter

This is blog post number 333.

The post What Were Your First 6 Months of Blogging Like? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.