Models in group of three having what appears to be far too much fun blogging
Blogging is one of the best ways to both drive traffic to your site, as well as to engage readers, encouraging repeat visits as well as backlinks. Here are some tips on how modeling talents can have effective blog articles which help them achieve their marketing goals.
1. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
Who are you writing for? What do they care about? What information can you share with them that they would find either beneficial, interesting or useful?
2. SET A SCHEDULE
Define right at the onset when and how often you will be blogging. Be sure not to over-commit yourself. When I first started blogging I wrote once a month. Shortly after that I went to two times a month. I’ve now gotten to a point where I can blog every week. However, if I started every week I could have overcommitted myself too early and thus lost the trust or faith of my readers.
3. WRITE AHEAD OF TIME
Do not let your own deadlines catch up on you. Write several blog articles ahead of time. I would even suggest writing 4-5 articles before you ever launch your blog. This way if you get a little behind, you always have a few articles you can pull from so that you don’t miss the schedule you set.
4. USE ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINES
Headlines are great because they are rich for SEO (search engine optimization) as well as a great teaser to encourage people to click. Consider using headlines that would be similar to search terms that your target audience would use. Wording such as “the best way to…” or “how to…”
5. EMBRACE A VARIETY OF TOPICS TO WRITE ABOUT
As a model there are such a bevy of topics that you can write about. You can go behind the scenes of the projects you work on, you can tell stories of things you’ve done, lessons you’ve learned, what is it is like to work with you, you could interview clients, have guest interviews, invite guest writers to blog on your blog, top 10 lists, bullet points, controversial discussion, comparing and contrasting, ask questions and engage your readers, reviews and more. Your goal as a blogger is to figure out what you audience cares about and link your ideas to that.
6. DON’T OVERSELL
I would say don’t sell at all, but a lot of blogs can get away with a small personal pitch here and there (provided the vast majority of the blog is created to be of benefit to the reader). If all you are doing is promoting yourself on your blog; most visitors don’t have a reason to be engaged.
7. USE MORE THAN TEXT
Text is great because it is keyword rich and can drive a lot of traffic. However, support multimedia facets in your blogs. Thus consider doing a video blog (which you can post on YouTube and Vimeo to drive more traffic to your website) and then embedding the video into your blog. You could do audio interviews or podcasts as a blog. You can post a variety of images in efforts to tell your story. These forms of content can be much easier to consumer than just text.
8. HAVE SOCIAL SHARING BUTTONS
Make sure your blog is equipped with social sharing buttons. If you do not know how to do this, please consult a designer who does. It is essential as you are allowing your readers to become brand evangelists and spread your message on your behalf. If people really like what you are saying and/or they really support you, they are going to want to spread your message to others that could be helped by it. There are a plethora of great apps for social sharing buttons. Yourself or your web designer can test which work best for your needs.
9. HAVE A WAY FOR PEOPLE TO SIGN UP
Having a blog online is fantastic. However you may miss a portion of your target audience who may not be able to (or want to) go to your website anytime they want to read what you’ve done. Thus have various ways people can sign up to subscribe to your blog. RSS is one way. I also like to have an e-mail sign up. Thus whenever I blog, it is e-mailed directly to readers who signed up to receive it. Permission based marketing at it’s finest. A fantastic way to stay in front of your clients.
10. LAYER YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS
When you blog, share what you’ve done on your various online channels to drive traffic. I tend to layer by posting links to latest blog articles on my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn channels to drive traffic in and encourage more readers.
There are many more blogging tips, but these 10 can get you started on your path. Along the way you can test to see which various methods, topics and marketing efforts work best for your goals as a modeling talent.
Happy blogging!
James Patrick
www.jamespatrick.com
