Whether you’ve just started a blog or have been blogging for a while now, the biggest hurdle has been and always will be how to get people to read your blog. There are millions and millions of blog posts all over the internet and what does it take to get someone to click onto yours? The answer is a compelling blog post. Well what is a compelling blog post and how does one write one? Here are some tips on how to write a compelling blog post.
A compelling blog post provides it’s readers with valuable and insightful information about a certain topic or idea they’re interested in. Don’t get me wrong anyone can write a blog post about a topic, but what makes people want to click on the link from Google or social media to read your post when there are hundreds of tweets or linkedIn posts an hour with people pushing their latest blog post? How can you stand out from the rest so that you can acquire the clicks instead of someone else?
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience and what they’re searching for is a great way to create content they want to read. Instead of guessing what you think they might like to read a blog post about try using data driven analytics to see what they’re searching for. Some ways to find out what your audience is interested in is seeing what is trending in social media and write a post about what is the hot topic in your niche currently. I also recommend using the Google Keyword Planner and see what phrase or keywords are searching for in Google and get some topic ideas from there.
Write a Killer Headline
The first thing people will see whether in search results or on social media is the headline. If you’re head line is ordinary for instance, “Drones,” don’t expect a huge influx of traffic of that headline. Yes drones and drone photography have a huge following but your headline does nothing to set you apart. When you Google something, you’re more often asking a question right? So why not make some of your headlines a question and provide the answer within the blog post. Instead of a headline saying Drone be more specific like How to Take Your Drone Photography to the Next Level or the Best Ways to Maneuver a Drone around Objects.
People search for questions, tips and tricks and how to do something on Google. Use a similar tactic to your headline creation and your will see an increase in traffic. My #1 tip on how to write a compelling blog post has and always will be a killer headline. This is your elevator pitch on the web. Make it count.
Use Visual Imagery
Another tip on how to create a compelling blog post is to use impactful images and video. People are visual creatures and while we do like to read sometimes having an accompanying image or video can help keep the user reading more and longer. If you don’t have any images or photos of your own, you can always buy some from stock photo sites like Getty or Adobe Stock. There are also free resources like Unsplash, but just make sure you credit the photographer or content creator in your blog post for using their content. It may be free, but it doesn’t take that long to credit someone for their work.
Don’t Be a Stiff Writer
When your write a blog post you don’t have to be all prim and proper. You don’t have to be a technical writer just write your blog post as if you’re talking to your reader directly. Break up your content into subheadings and you can also break up your paragraphs into a couple of sentences here and there.
When paragraphs are broken into 2 or 3 sentences it’s easier for you reader to digest your information. Nobody wants to see long paragraphs because they’ll get the feeling like they don’t have the time or patience to read all of that. Keep it short, sweet and to the point.
Optimize for SEO
The biggest tip on how to write a compelling blog post is to optimize your post for SEO. This tip has more to do’s then the other tips, but that is because it has the most potential to get your post traffic.
Keywords
Focus your content around one or two long tail keywords. What is a long tail keyword you ask? It’s a phrase of more than 3 words. For instance if you’re writing about a certain sneaker your keyword shouldn’t be sneaker. It should be more descriptive like Nike Air Zoom Max 13’s (made up sneaker, but not surprised if it did exist). Sneakers is just a broad term and you’ll never make any headway SEO wise with such a broad term.
Title Tag
Make sure to include your keyword within the first 60 characters of your title,. That is just about where Google cuts titles off on the search results. And if your title is longer than 60 characters make sure you find a way to move the keyword to the beginning so that it can be seen in the results.
Blog Post URL
The URL should reflect the keywords in it as well. For instance www.mysite.com/nike-air-max-13 is the proper way to structure your URL for your blog post. If you haven’t realized yet, the keyword for your post is more important than just the topic you write your post about. It has major SEO implications.
Meta Description
Same thing with your title tag and URL, make sure your Meta Description has your keyword in there as well. You have about 300 characters to work with so make it count. Don’t just write something like, “Another blog post about the Nike Air Zoom Max 13’s.” If your post is about how to clean them then use that for the Meta Description, just don’t be generic. You’re trying to attract readers not repel them.
Alt Text
For all the images you use in your post make sure to add Alt Text for them. Here’s a hint, incorporate your keyword and some variants of that keyword into your alt text. People use Google to search for images as well and with Alt Text and naming your image file to the keyword like nike-air-zoom-max-13.jpg instead of sneaker124.jpg you will get more clicks and that is what we all want right?
Those are just some of my tips on how to write a compelling blog post. Do you have some you would like to share? Just leave them down in the comments!