Blogging can be a fun and interesting tool to build your business. It provides value to readers, the format is fairly straight forward to manage and create. It’s also a well-accepted and loved means of connecting with others, learning, and exploring the world. As a blogger and business owner, you’ll be better able to pull people into your community and keep them engaged if you’ve earned their trust and confidence. There are several tactics you can embrace to help accomplish this feat.

#1 Stick to the Point

As a blogger it’s easy to get carried away with the content in your blog post. There’s so much information to share and the medium is personal. It’s not uncommon for a blogger to talk about several topics in one post and to stray from the point with personal examples. While this deviation and long winded approach to informing and educating may seem great to you, your readers have limited time, attention spans, and they really just want you to share the good stuff with them – skip the fluff and meandering.

Decide what you want to teach or share and then create a three to five point message that helps you accomplish your goals. If you share stories or examples, make sure they appropriately convey your point. You’ll earn your reader’s confidence when you consistently provide value and stick to the point.

#2 Your Keyword Approach is Obvious

Don’t you just love it when you’re reading a blog post and the writer uses the same three keyword phrases so often you’re distracted and counting the keywords rather than reading the material? It happens. Write for your readers first, and the search engines second. Search engines are becoming savvier about how they identify quality content and keyword stuffing doesn’t really work anymore. Focus on your readers.

#3 Care About What You’re Saying

There are subtle signs that you just don’t care anymore and if you don’t care, your readers don’t either. Show you care by editing what you write. Writing content that is important to your readers and that you feel confident about. And by sharing your personality and vision with your readers. Be authentic and transparent. There tends to be a misconception amongst bloggers that quantity is more important than quality. Wrong. You’d do better to earn their confidence if you wrote one great blog post a month rather than five iffy posts each week.

You earn your prospect’s confidence by thinking about them first and last when you’re brainstorming blog post topics and creating your content. Earn their trust and confidence they’ll become part of your community and convert to customers and referral sources.