A (new) way to think of blog categories

Today, we’re going into talking about content and your blog. And how to make your blog better and more effective.

And today, we’ll begin by talking about how you use your blog categories. Because I’m willing to bet there’s huge room for improvement on your blog when it comes to how you use categories.

I look at a lot of blogs, given what I do for a living. And, when it comes to blog categories, here’s what I often see…

• Blog categories set up as little filing cabinets

• The titles of those categories are simple headings

• Often there are way too many of them

It can lead to a lot of confusion at times. It can be overwhelming for your reader. Plus, when you write your post, you have to think about which categories it is the right fit for.

The thing is… this way of using categories is pretty useless. If you list a big honker list of categories in your sidebar, more than likely nobody every clicks on them.

There’s a better way to do this…

Instead of treating your categories like filing cabinets, align your categories around things your target market wants to accomplish.

Think about it…

Marketing and conversion comes down to communicating the benefits and then moving them toward action. Right? Marketing 101, really.

Well, if your blog structure and categories are aligned around the benefits that your market is seeking, then it makes the overall conversion capability of your blog much better.

So, example of this from a restructure I did on my own site awhile back. The OLD category structure was:

• Content Creation

• Conversions

• Entrepreneurship

• Marketing

• News

• Social Media

• Technical

• Traffic

Like many, I was using categories as little filing cabinets to stick stuff into. Not very useful. But, I re-did the whole thing to:

• Get More Traffic

• Build My Platform

• Sell More Stuff

• Increase Engagement

• Be More Productive

• Build My Business

Notice how the categories are aligned around specific benefits and outcomes that my market wants?

This turns your categories into a marketing tool.

You can then use something like Thrive Leads to offer specific lead magnets in each of these categories.

You can have different calls to actions to different, related offers specific to each of those market benefits.

Your categories can align to specific blog profit funnels used to monetize each one.

Ya feelin’ me?

If your blog is going to be at the top of your funnel (and it is), then your categories can each be like little funnels.

And then, when you list your categories in your top nav or sidebar, they will CLEARLY show what your blog has to offer.

That’s real BLOG MARKETING!

See, this place wasn’t called Blog Marketing Academy for no reason.

– David