Increase Your Blog Content With These Tips

If your blog isn’t working as well as you hoped, then the chances are that your content is going to need some attention. Content marketing is a challenging strategy when it comes to increasing your blog content and growing your blog, largely because it needs consistent and regular idea creation, all while working hard to build your audience.

Blog growth is always going to mean that you need to dedicate time to making sure that your content looks good on screen, reads well in every format, and is always high-quality and entertaining. That can be a difficult balance to get right, and if you’re struggling with your blog, or you’re simply looking for advice on where you might be going wrong, then these tips might just help you to make a real difference to the amount of content that you can create.

7 Top Tips To Increase Your Blog Content

Tip 1 – Newsjacking

It may have become something of a buzzword, but newsjacking is a proven way to encourage interaction and act as a resource for great new blog post ideas. It’s also a very simple strategy, and you don’t have to be a qualified journalist to take advantage of it.

The easiest way to use the latest news to grow your blog is simply to follow the trending news that is related to your blog niche area of interest and converting that news into a blog post. Repurposing news can work very well, although you may have to spend some time investigating the daily news to find subject matter that is relevant to you. You can make this easier by setting up news alerts for certain blog-relevant keywords so that you never have to spend too much time news-gathering.

Tip 2 – Blog Breaks

It’s always a good idea to vary the type and style of your blog posts, so if you’re consistently using long, 2,000-word essays on a regular basis, then it may be worth breaking them up into separate items. This is all about making sure that you are using your content more efficiently, and if you’re breaking down those lengthy posts into easily digestible and focused posts, then you can stretch your content out without diluting the impact of them.

It can also help if you are also using a lot of shorter posts, as these too can act as a springboard into a new series. If you have one short article about industry regulations, you can create a series examining different effects, creating a seamless series of content that will make it easier for you to know what you’re going to be writing about on a daily basis.

Tip 3 – Calendar-Driven Content

You’ll never struggle to find content ideas again if you start making use of your calendar. If you are prepared with relevant content that you can use to tap into the trending hashtags of every day, then your content can have a much more powerful impact. It’s even better if the content that you create for each day is of the evergreen variety, then you have blog posts that you can use every year, expanding the lifespan of your work.

If you can connect your blog to any events or trends, then you can potentially reach an entirely new audience.

Tip 4 – The Round-Up

One of the things that most bloggers don’t realise is that they don’t have to stick to creating content all by themselves. There’s a reason why journalists are using social media to find and create news stories. For every piece of breaking news, there are people with an opinion about it, and whether your blog is entertainment-focused or food-based, it’s never been easier to gather those opinions and convert them into data, and then a blog post.

These forms of content can become regular crowd-pleasers, and you can also make use of those around you to gather opinions and disseminate them into the world. The round-up can also be used to create a regular series, with your industry news uploaded at the beginning or end of every week, providing your audience with the news that they need to know about that’s relevant to them and your blog.

Tip 5 – Start a Regular Column

If you think about more traditional media formats, columns and series have always played a big part. From ‘Letters to the Editor’ to ‘A Day in the Life of…’, these can be effective for a number of reasons.

The first is that by having a clear focus, you will spend significantly less time on brainstorming ideas because you already know what needs doing. A regular column can also work because whether you focus the subject area on your audience or industry professionals, you are going to get shares, expanding the reach of your brand and hopefully finding a whole new audience. Have a look at the print magazines that are relevant to your blog, and see what kind of columns they use.

Tip 6 – Outsourcing

If you are always struggling with fresh ideas for new content, then it may be worth looking at outsourcing some of the work. You can do this in three ways:

Internally: If you are office based then you no doubt have co-workers around you that you can ask for suggestions or help. It is one of the more effective ways of outsourcing and can alleviate a lot of your workload. Remember, if you do work for a company with a large workforce, then your audience is always going to be interested in the story of your brand, and you can take advantage of that by getting specialist members of the team to write articles about their own roles, and what they do on a day to day basis.

Externally: You can always find a freelance writer to help you with content creation, although the price that you pay may vary. However, be careful to avoid poorly managed content mills, as these will be unlikely to be able to replicate your tone of voice, and can easily lead to a pile of unusable work. Instead, look at hiring a single writer who can learn in-depth about your brand and learn your TOV, so that there are no jarring changes of style from post to post.

Use your audience: This is a free way to easily generate plenty of content, whether you’re a single blogger working from home or a small cog in a much larger company. Your audience can always be relied on to have an opinion, and there are a few different ways that you can utilise them for content. The first is simply to ask them for content, which can be very helpful and may even open you up to new talents. If that doesn’t sound like it would suit your brand or ethos, then simply make use of competitions and surveys, and use the data that you gather to create more content. You should also take time on a regular basis to look through comments sections on your blog and your social media, making notes on any questions that you can answer in the form of a written article or some other form of media (video/infographic/podcast).

Tip 7 – Share, share, share

You want your own content to be as shareable as possible, and you’ll no doubt be keeping a close eye on those interaction figures. However, don’t be afraid to share content from other sources. While most content strategies are focused on creating the most original and interesting content for yourself, there is also a lot of benefit to sharing the related quality content of others. If you spot a relevant infographic or video, and it makes for some potentially interesting discussion, then use your social media to share it. If it is within your blog’s niche area, then your established audience is going to be as interested as you are. Remember to credit the source, and you may even attract a new audience too.

Every blog is different, and whether you’re in an open office or your bedroom, content creation is always going to take up the majority of your time. If you struggle with ideas, then make the effort to have a content calendar detailing exactly what you’re going to post and when. Have content ready to go at all times, and rather than waiting for inspiration to hit, take the initiative and generate those ideas before you need them. Never be afraid to try out new types of content, and always keep a close eye on your analytics.

When you see that you have a popular post, assess what made it successful (format/timing/subject) and use that as a springboard to creating similar pieces. Experimentation can be just the boost that your blog needs. Remember to have a constantly updated list of content article ideas. If you have ideas already prepared, then your content creation will be a much smoother process, and your blog content will increase in a much more natural way.