Your motivation in starting your own nonprofit blog should be to increase interest in your nonprofit organization, and all the various causes and projects it undertakes for the enrichment of your community. Engaging with your readers could be critical to the ongoing success of your organization, and for increasing the ranking of your website. In order to really connect with readers, you’ll have to offer them content which is really compelling, informative, or useful in some way to their daily lives. Here are the steps you’ll need to take in order to accomplish these goals, and get a worthwhile blog going.
Place your blog in an optimal setting
This is much more important than it sounds, because if your blog isn’t situated in the ideal setting, it probably won’t be seen and read by sufficient numbers of people. Many of the most successful bloggers position their content right on their website, under a different tab name. The drawback to this approach is that it assumes people have already found your website, and already have the option to read your blog. Another approach would be to start up a second website exclusively for the blog, or to piggyback onto a successful website, and direct all possible traffic back to your original website.
Research your audience
The reason this is important is because you’ll need to write in a style which your audience finds appealing, and you’ll need to provide them with information which they value. The best way to do this is to gain an understanding of their wants, needs, and pain points – whatever it is that drives them and influences their decision-making. You can obtain this data through surveys, questionnaires, and by direct communication on social media.
Determine who will write the blog
You don’t necessarily have to be a strong writer yourself to startup a blog. But if you aren’t going to be the regular writer, you’ll have to identify just who will be providing regular content to the blog. You’ll also need to establish an understanding with your team of writers about the kind of content you want, so that the blog can have a consistent voice and message. A different tone every week will leave readers wondering, and possibly confused.
Establish a template
One of the best ways you can establish a consistent voice and message for your blog is to create a template which is used for each posting. This doesn’t mean every blog has to follow the exact same formula, but it does mean that each one should feature a strong, interesting topic. It should also include a good introduction, content with great value to readers, and some kind of actionable conclusion.
Setup a publishing calendar
This is an important step which does much more than relieve you of the need for manual posting. It maintains consistency of the frequency of your posts, and it provides you with a high-level look at your posts for an entire year, or whatever time frame you’re managing. When your readers can expect consistent new content on a regular schedule, they’ll come to look for it at that time, and you will have established a solid connection with your followers.
