Top 5 Things to know Before You Start a Blog in 2016

2016 is going to be a year for great content developers. Google’s focus on quality content is growing stronger with every passing day. No matter how effectively your other digital marketing strategies are working, if your web page lacks quality content, the search engine will low-rank it sooner or later. Updates might be made to the algorithms every now and then, but the core concept is same – determining the best possible search result for every query. Therefore, if you want to bring your brand to the top pages, you need to adopt the principle that Google follows, i.e., creating a great user experience.

And to avail that, the first step is quality content. And, by content, we mean everything that you would possibly come across on a web page. Text, image, info graphic, video, you name it! So before you embark on the journey of how to start a blog, there are various things that you need to know. In highly competitive verticals, the focus is to provide your audience with the information they actually need and seek.

Here are the top 5 things you should know before starting a blog on any random topic:

1. The value of content - The impact of quality content is sustainable and long lasting. It wouldn’t be uncommon if you are spending 15-30 hours in writing one blog or article. What was once a quality of companies with deep pockets has now become everyone’s necessity! Writing customer-centric, highly informative contents is the only way to make your blog stand out from other flood of websites. Good content also creates a seamless connection between the user and the resource, which makes them visit the website again and again.

2. Competition analysis – Almost every topic that you might think of writing has already been written before. These days, there is more talk and less research. Think about the competition, find out the number of people who are also involved in the domain you are interested in, and plan how you can beat this competition.

A good research is the key to this problem. Do some research into the competition; see what people they are targeting, what are the back links they have and where are they coming, what keywords they use, etc.

3. Visual content will take the center stage - Data visualization is thought to be the future of content marketing. Not all your audience has the patience to spend time on reading a text that 500 or 1000 words long. However, they want to be informed as well. As a marketer, you must be able to suffice the needs of all kinds of consumers. This is where infographics come in.

Infographics or information graphics are factual data presented visually. Data used in an infographic is coherent, can be easily transferred, and is very easy-to-get as well.

4. Social Sharing - Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is like the location where all your potential customers are going to be. Introduce your brand smartly and get started with consistent sharing and updating about everything relevant to your business once you set up your blog

5. Develop evergreen contents - As a forward-thinking business owner, you must understand that your website needs contents that will not fade away that easily.

So, before you start researching on how to start a blog, you need to do a thorough research the aforementioned five points. Collect as much information about what these points mean, implement them and rest assured, your blog will not take much time drawing attention from your targeted demographics.