Blogger vs WordPress Blog

Welcome come to Part 2 of my series and I encourage everyone to read Part 1 before going forward. Everyone wants to find creative ways to generate traffic and leads so I've decided to do research and put this together. In the previous part, we talked about choosing the right hosting provider and installing WordPress. Once you've installed your platform, it's time to do some research so you can find out about your audience. I went over some cool ways to streamline your audience research, which means to research your competition and their content while paying close attention to their social media platforms. Next,

It's time to understand your bottom line and come up with a game plan. This is very important especially if you're creating a brand and want to market it a specific way. Without having a clear cut branding plan, you might lose track of what's important and this will affect your bottom line and how you relate to your audience. Let's get started with understanding your branding concept and the fundamentals.

Your branding concept will be determined mainly by your content, which you'll learn in the next step and your identity online. This means creating a website and logo people can relate to each time they visit your website. Your logo, on the other hand, will play a much vital role when displayed on external platforms. For example, think about the image you get when you see the following logo displayed:

Apple

IBM

John Chow

Samsung

Pepsi

I know I can be driving anywhere in the world and I'll know EXACTLY what these brands represent when I see the logo. It's important to know that blogging is a business and you should approach it the very same way. For example, here are a few things you should be focusing on when getting started.

Logo –

Create a logo that will represent your brand going forward. You can get someone to design it, but make sure it's clear and will have an encouraging logo. The reason this is so important is because after you build credibility and people see it, your logo will be able to generate traffic quickly through awareness. I know when I click through on the logo I'll be able to find valuable information.

WordPress –

Your website will represent your brand through images, colors, fonts, and layout. It's important you have a clear idea of the layout when starting. Understand how this will engage users when they arrive on your blog, looking for content. The right colors should be easy on the eyes so people want to stay on your page. The fonts should be clear so they'll be able to read your content without any problems. Your slogan should be right on top and should represent what your blog is all about. Navigational menus should be very easy to locate and be organized in a way to make find content easy.

Finally, I've noticed people love to share their feedback, so always add a comment box for people to leave feedback. This is a great way to encourage a debate and find new content topics through questions posted in the box.

Creating Content Plan –

I never encourage people to jump into writing content because it's important to perform research. You need to know what your audience is looking for and this was discussed in Part 1 of my series. I'm not going into too much detail about this, but will encourage people to have a content plan ready. You should know the following:

Content length

Content frequency

Content topics

You have to keep in mind, your blog is only as good as your content. It's important to have a plan so you can frequently publish content on a regular basis. Your traffic will decrease if you're unable to provide high quality, fresh content to your readers regularly. This is why I've always encouraged my readers to always perform research and create a list of potential topics. This way, it's hard for them to run into a problem of NOT having anything to write about. You never know where you'll get inspiration for content so keep a mobile application ready to write down blogging ideas. The point is this should all be outlined in a content plan. You should know how you'll write down ideas, length of content, frequency, etc., because you'll then discipline yourself to stick to this content marketing plan.

In Part 3, we'll go over plug-ins that will improve your traffic and leads. WordPress has created an interface that streamlines much of the work you need to do when building a site for traffic and leads.

Source: Want More Traffic and Leads? Follow These WordPress Tips – Part 2