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Suppose you want to improve your private school's blog or increase the frequency with which you blog. You have to produce high-quality content that attracts visitors consistently. Or perhaps you've written a few blog posts and are eager to see how they're being received. You've put your heart and soul into each article, and you're confident that parents will enjoy reading the content you've carefully crafted for them.
You sit back and wait for the likes, shares, and comments to pour in. You look at your blog every day, and nothing.
Is this something that has happened to you? If this is the case, don't be disheartened, as this does not have to be the case. There are strategies you can employ to almost guarantee that your blog posts will drive traffic immediately and continue attracting visitors for months to come.
Here are my top seven quick-win strategies for private school blog posts that will attract visitors from search engines, social media, and other websites.
1. Start With the Right Topic
Too often, we choose topics based on what we want to write about rather than what our audience wants to read. You’ll fail no matter how many other blog writing strategies you employ if you don’t write about something your parents care about.
Here are a few ways to determine what topics are popular with your prospective student’s parents.
- Use keyword research tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner or Wordstream’s Free Keyword tool to find relevant keywords. Look for phrases that are widely used (but not too popular as those may be too competitive.)
- Monitor sentiment with monitoring tools that reveal popular topics among your target audience. These tools can assist you in narrowing down your niche with specific topics.
- Use Facebook surveys or a tool like SurveyMonkey to poll your audience.
- Use Buzzsumo, AnswerThePublic, or Quora to discover actual questions about school enrollment that your target audience is asking in browser searches.
2. Refine Your Topic
Once you've determined a list of relevant topics, you need to look at each and see how in-depth they have been covered. Consider refining the topic if you can find several blogs and articles that already address the topics you've identified.
3. Include Multiple Subtopics
People are looking for articles with substance in today's overcrowded content marketplace. Gone are the days of 400-word "quick and dirty" posts that only cover the surface of a topic. According to research by Buzzsumo, they suggest that blogs be more than 2,000 words per post. You will want to include headings and subheadings to allow readers to quickly scan your article and the headlines to figure out what they are most interested in reading.
4. Keyword SEO Strategy
Google’s algorithms have gotten so sophisticated that you don’t need to worry about keywords as much, but you should still consider using them in your posts. Use keywords as appropriate in your title, headings, subheadings, alt-image tags, and throughout your content.
5. Internal Linking
It’s easy to overlook the importance of linking to other pages on your website. However, internal linking keeps visitors on your site longer and improves the ranking of your posts and pages in search engines. Consider revisiting older posts on your site and linking to the new articles you’ve just written to help visitors find your latest posts and boost that new post in the search engines.
6. Use Visuals
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, ensure your blog posts include some visuals. BuzzSumo recommends that you include at least one image in your post, as it will help to increase social sharing. When there is a visual component to the content, it is shared twice as much, so take the time to create or find something relevant.
Do you need some help tracking down images? If so, you are lucky, as we have two blog posts to help you do that!
7. Share It on Social Media
Once you’ve written the perfect post for prospective parents and students, share it on social media to raise awareness and drive traffic to your blog. As the word spreads about your post, more people will want to read, share, and link to it, increasing the reach and amplification of your blog. The beauty of blogging and social media is how effectively they increase search engine rankings, which means more traffic to your site over time.
Final Thoughts
Blogging and social media sharing are powerful tools for making a difference in the lives of your students, staff, and parents while increasing inbound traffic to your website. The time you put into content creation, sharing, and engagement is well worth it.
If you need help generating topics, blogs, or images for your private school, reach out to me today. I am here to help you and your school grow!
