Three Blogging Strategies To Help You Succeed In 2022

What are the best blogging strategies for building a profitable online business?

It can get confusing because there’s so much conflicting advice out there. But don’t worry – here are three strategies that work well in 2022.

Strategy #1 – An 8-Step Formula for Blogging Success

Ramsay Taplin starts of his article with a good point: the overall blogging strategy for a successful blog is not that complicated or difficult.

The key is this: being consistent and not getting distracted.

He says that successful blogs all have a number of things in common. Here they are:

get your own domain name and host
do some competition analysis for your niche
plan your brand, look and feel
use headlines to grab the reader’s attention
focus on one simple Call To Action (CTA)
build an email list as a matter of urgency
link out to valuable tools and resources
write long articles
stand out from the crowd

Strategy #2 – Pillar Posts and Sub-Posts

Nicholas Tart begins his article with an old advertising adage that a customer needs to see your ad 7 times before they buy.

He reasons that blog posts are basically ads (for you and your brand) – so you need to have your readers see your blog posts 7 times.

Here are his three blogging strategies for achieving this:

create pillar posts (3,000 – 5,000 words) for each category on your blog
create sub-posts for each tip within your pillar posts strategically interlink your pillar articles and specialty articles
point your pillar posts to a squeeze page

The key to this strategy is point 2 – creating sub-posts for each tip within your pillar posts.

When you do this it creates a mini-network of content within your blog.

Every time you add a sub-post to the pillar post, that mini-network becomes stronger and more valuable (to the reader and to you).

Strategy #3 – Be Intentional With Your Content

Sonia Thompson starts her article with a good question:

When publication day rolls around, do you have a post ready? Or do you frantically scramble at the last minute to figure out what you’re going to write?

In other words, do you just create random content at the last minute?

Sonia’s article sets out her key blogging strategies:

(Source)

Step 1: Start by knowing where you want to go

What’s your goal?

To be a digital nomad? To throw in the 9-to-5? To build your list? To bring in more customers?

Be clear about your goal.

You’ll also need to identify some milestones, so that you know you’re making progress towards your goal.

Step 2: Get to know your readers inside out

You might think this all about demographics and market research.

It’s partly that, but mostly it’s about using imagination and creating an imaginary relationship with your ideal reader.

Step 3: Set up a conveyor belt of content

If you’re thinking this is a production line of blog posts…

…not quite.

It’s more like a process for moving your readers along the sales funnel from ‘Stranger’ to ‘Reader’ to ‘Subscriber’ to ‘Engaged Loyal Fan’ to ‘Customer’.

Step 4: Find your ideal content format

Is it audio, video, or text?

If it’s text, is it blog posts? And what sort of blog posts? Listicle, case study, tutorial, definitive guide?

Spend some time thinking about what blog post format is best suited to your ideal reader.

Step 5: Choose the right channel

How are you going to promote your content?

This will depend what stage your reader is at. If your reader is a stranger, a guest post would be a good choice.

But if your reader is already a subscriber, a post to your email list is the way to go.

Step 6: Build relationships by staying in touch

This is what people mean when they talk about ‘consistency’ – it’s almost become a mantra of successful blogging.

Regular emails are vital. Frequency isn’t so important (could be weekly, bi-monthly, or even monthly) as consistency.

Step 7: Pick a promotion strategy

It’s a rule of thumb that you should spend as much time promoting your blog post as you spent creating it.

Sonia Thompson identifies 6 possible promotion strategies:

Paid Traffic
SEO
Influencer Outreach
Borrowed Audience
Email Lists
Social Media

Step 8: Include a Call To Action (CTA)

This can be a hash tag in a social media post, a bio in a guest post, an invitation to comment in a blog post, and so on.

It’s amazing how often you see a blog post full of helpful tips, but lacking an effective CTA.

Conclusion

Here’s a summary of the three blogging strategies we’ve covered in this article:

Ramsay Taplin:

be consistent (i.e. publishing blog posts at predictable intervals)
focus on just one Call To Action per web page or blog post
build an email list

Nicholas Tart:

write pillar posts with sub posts
strategically interlink your pillar posts and sub posts

Simone Thompson:

get to know your readers
be aware what stage of the funnel your reader is at (stranger or subscriber?)
build relationships with your readers