Curating high quality content is one of the most important aspects of inbound marketing, and one of the best ways to generate a consistent flow of fresh content is by blogging.
According to research, schools that blog generate 55 percent more website visitors, 97 percent more inbound links, and have 434 percent more indexed pages than schools that do not. However, while many schools are starting to realize the powerful impact a blog can have on their success, that not all schools are doing it right.
Read to discover 5 errors to avoid when setting up a school blog and how to solve them:
Error 1: Publishing your blog on another domain
Not integrating your blog with your website i.e. publishing your blog on another domain, separate from your school’s website can be detrimental for many reasons.
Solution: Your blog should ideally be on a sub-domain of your main website. Effective & consistent blogging will increase visitor traffic to your school website as it will improve search engine optimisation (SEO) on your website. By integrating your blog with your website you can easily provide a more consistent user experience and stronger brand perception.
Error 2: Posting infrequently/inconsistently
By blogging, schools can attract the right types of students/parents and share information with current parents. Research indicates schools that blog 16 to 20 times per month double their traffic versus those that blog fewer than 4 times per month.
Solution: Create an editorial calendar to keep you on track for regular publishing and consider increasing the number of times you post blogs in a month if below 4.
Error 3: Lack of blog promotion
Are you missing out on the power of social media to increase your readership and influence?
Solution: Spend time building your reach on social media and promoting your content there. This will in turn earn you more exposure, more clicks, and more website visitors. Tweet links and post content to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites your audience populates.
Error 4: Not sourcing new content
A one-track blog that showcases only one person’s perspective may most likely result in a boring & unsuccessful blog. Consider other content sources to keep your blog frequently flowing with great content.
Solution: Aggregate resources from other websites around a particular topic (content curation), encourage staff to contribute to your blog, and welcome guest bloggers to your site.
By creating and curating solutions-focused blog content, you’ll provide value and build brand trust with prospective parents.
Error 5: Ignoring the analytics
If you’re blogging away, but you haven’t stopped to analyze your blog’s success you won’t know whether your efforts are paying off or whether to make certain improvements. When you fail to analyze your blog’s effectiveness, you are missing out on valuable information and data that can take your blog to the next level and increase its effectiveness.
Solution: Pay attention to analytics as they can be helpful in determining which topics, titles, and types of articles are working – or not working – for your blog’s audience.
Do you blog effectively? Are you making any of the errors above? Start afresh today! Do not abandon your blog because you aren’t seeing any significant results! You’ll be missing out on a valuable opportunity for enrolment generation and new parents. Building a successful blog takes time, effort and commitment but it’s worth it.
Written by Rukevwe Toka @SwoopStudios
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