How to Blog Without Making it Look Like an Ad.

Without being too on the nose, it's simple: don't write an ad and pretend it's not an ad. 

This happens a lot, of course, and it speaks to a common misunderstanding that marketing and advertising are synonymous. They aren't. Advertising is just one facet to marketing. But that's a much larger topic than we want to dive into here. 

So let's dial it in: I've written about this before-- content marketing is not advertising. The sole intent of content marketing is to create an audience comprised of people similar to your best customers, and nurture them until they are ready to become your best customers. To that end, content marketing has a four-fold purpose: 

The Four-Fold Purpose of Content Marketing. 

Engagement

The primary aim is to encourage and entice people to interact with your content, you and themselves around the ideas your blog promotes. You want a community that is active and attracts others.  

Reciprocity

This is where you start giving before you ask for anything in return. Think of this community like a piggy bank. If you're not contributing to it regularly, your never going to get much out of it. But when you make small regular deposits, they add up over time. That buildup is actually like potential energy just waiting to be unleashed.

Authority

Build authority by establishing yourself as someone worth knowing--someone with insight, expertise, and experience.  Share your knowledge, give generously of your time and resources, and become a go-to source for information in your field.

Eventually, when they have a problem your product or service solves, who are they going to turn to? Someone they know and are confident can help them.

SEO

This one's pretty straightforward. The more useful and relevant content you produce, the higher it will rank in search engines. It's important to know, there are some cases where it's advisable to create two posts around a topic, one for your readers and one for SEO. But we'll dive into that in another post. 

Ultimately, your goal should be to overdeliver to your audience more you ask them for things. A lot more. Blog with the intent of helping others and building a community around your ideas. 

With that approach, if you want to advertise, place ads in the sidebar of your blog, not in the copy in your posts. If your content is helpful and meaningful, no one will mind a few unobtrusive display ads.