Sending Your Readers in the Right Direction: Blog Post Marketing

NaNoWriMo: Planning and Tracking Tools SEO and Social Media Survival

Sending Your Readers in the Right Direction: Blog Post Marketing

bigblogs The bigger your blog gets, the harder it is for readers to find the content they want, or you need shared the most. However, there is an easy solution: build in a simple mini-search engine for your readers which is easy to access and takes no technical wizardry to set up.

Last week I posted on how and why I had cut my posts down to 164 to make the blog more reader friendly. I was also wondering who was going to read back through over 200+ posts? Probably no one. However, there is one way to keep high quality older posts accessible to readers: by effectively using categories.

While it can take some time to go through a big blog and categorise old posts, it’s worth that investment! Think through the best way to represent your topics. A straight label may not always be effective. Cleverly named categories may work well as teasers to pique curiosity. If say, a book title isn’t drawing traffic, alter the category name your book posts are under, to draw interest.

To make categories readily searchable, you can either use the category sidebar widget that your blog has, or do as I have done as used a text widget to separate the categories out of the cloud and make them more readable. To increase their usefulness, you can also link straight to a category and share it on social media; or as I have done, list them in places where they will draw attention, such as on my Best of the Blog page and my web site. Don’t forget to use the slug feature which allows you to put in a brief description or explanation of the category. It will clear up any confusion and let you communicate extra information.

wlogo I’m interested in hearing what categories draw your attention. What works on your blog? Please share in the comments. Here is my new category list.