10 Great Blog Post Ideas for Generating Traffic: Part 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we focused on some great blog post ideas to help you generate more high quality traffic to your website, and establish your business as the coveted “thought leader” in your marketplace. Here’s what we’ve recommended so far:

Issues & Insights
Answers to FAQs
Lists, Lists and More Lists!
How-To’s
Checklists
Case Studies and Use Cases

Below, we explore 2 more ideas that should be part of your blog post playbook:

7. Infographics

Infographics make excellent blog posts — in a way. Here’s what we mean by this: some businesses opt to put their Infographics directly into their blog posts. And you’ve no doubt seen these as you’ve journeyed through various blogs that you find interesting and impressive.

However, our approach here at Leap Clixx is to help our clients generate intelligence from their blog and not just traffic, and so we generally advise them to “gate” their Infographics by putting them behind a small, simple contact form. In this way, customers exchange their name and email address for the Infographic (as you may recall, this is the same tactic we suggested with checklist-related blog posts in part 2 of this series).

Based on the above approach, the blog post would then summarize the Infographic and provide a link to it. It’s important for the information here to be compelling, but not TOO descriptive as you don’t want to give away all of the great information in the Infographic!

And speaking of which, we recently published a blog post highlighting the 4 Key Elements of Outstanding Graphics. Make sure you check it out, so that the Infographics you create – or that are created on your behalf – are working for your business…rather than against it.

8. Guest Blog Posts

Guest blog posts CAN be a great idea for generating traffic and impressing customers – but this approach needs to be handled and managed correctly.

Here’s why: while presumably every guest poster is an expert or authority in their space, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the writing ability to craft a great blog post. What’s more, some guest posters may not necessarily craft blog posts that are interesting or relevant to your customers. There are 3 simple things to do in order to avoid these unfortunate events:

Before asking an expert to craft a guest post for you, check out their writing style (usually by reading their blogs, articles, etc.) to confirm that they can write at a sufficient level. If not, and unless your guest poster happens to be an A-list industry Rock Star whose name alone is highly valuable, then keep looking for a more viable candidate. Or, if you have the in-house or outsourced resources to do so, you can offer to ghostwrite or edit your guest poster’s contribution. Obviously you’ll be paying for this, so it may not be cost effective. But if it makes the difference in having a big name or big company contributing to your blog, then it could be a smart investment.
Have a simple and friendly set of editorial guidelines that you’ll provide your guest poster. The “simple and friendly” aspect here is essential, because you aren’t paying for the blog and your guest poster isn’t working for you. So you don’t want to dole out any heavy-handed rules. Generally, you just want to help your guest poster understand who your customer base is, the desired length for the blog, and so on.
Either present your guest poster with a few topic ideas that they may want to run with (and of course these would need to align with their expertise), or ask them to share some ideas of their own before writing – not after. Again, this conversation should be simple, friendly and collaborative. Good guest posters will have absolutely no problem with this, because they understand that you’re helping each other: they’re giving you good content for your customers, and you’re giving them a spotlight on your blog. It’s win-win.

Also remember that guest posts should not be the norm on your blog, but rather the special exception. You don’t want your blog to be perceived as an “article directory for different experts” – because YOU are the expert! Your want your visitors to appreciate your knowledge, be grateful for your advice, and come back for more. Furthermore, ensuring that you have a consistent “blog voice” is also vital here, as customers don’t like engaging a different style every time they access a blog. In fact, they hate it!