In the vast and crowded world of online content, your company's blog is just another drop in the ocean. With countless blogs exploring similar topics and leveraging the same tools, it's no longer enough to simply publish a blog post and hope for the best.
Yet, the secret to standing out lies in creating blog posts that are simultaneously simple and complex, accessible and profound, familiar and surprising. So, how can you achieve this paradoxical balance?
In this article, we'll share six actionable tips that these expert writers use to create content that attracts loyal readers, boosts traffic, and generates comments and shares.
From understanding your audience to creating catchy headlines and leveraging visual elements, these tips will help you take your blogging to the next level and establish a powerful online presence.
Get ready to unleash the power of compelling content!
Before delving into the task of creating captivating blog content, two essential items require your attention.
Understand your audience
Who are you writing for? That answers the question of who your audience is. Your business target audience should help a lot with identifying your blog audience. But understand that the latter should not be limited to the former.
For example, the blog audience of an artisan that makes leather purses for women in the United Kingdom would cut across:
Target audience
Other leather artisans looking for inspiration
People who simply find leather works appealing
Fashion bloggers
People from anywhere in the world web rooming leather purses.
Understanding your audience will allow your blog to focus on their interests and challenges. Also, it gives you a good idea of what keywords and phrases they use when looking for content your blog discusses.
Plan your content
Before you begin writing, carry out keyword research. It will align your article with what users are searching for. Also, outline the goals and determine the word count limit of the article.
That way you have a standard to review your final draft against. Planning your content this way also keeps writing focused and not all over the place. To speed up the planning process, create a content calendar complete with keywords, content goals, and word limits.
6 tips for compelling blog posts
1. Craft a commanding headline
Your headline is the point where readers decide if your post might be the best answer to their questions or if they need to scroll on. They make this decision within seconds so you need to put your best foot forward.
Compelling headlines promise specific solutions. The benefit the post offers should be clearly stated. Steer clear of making exaggerated promises, readers detest click-baiting.
Your headline should contain the keyword or keyphrase people use to search for the topic. Support your keywords with stirring adjectives but don't use overtly fancy or difficult words, they repel readers.
It's best to use "how-to" and list headline formats. Including the number of tips, steps, and opinions are important as well. It helps readers determine if your content is in long or short form. Additionally, keep the headline around 60 characters so it's not truncated by Google.
In the examples below, which would you click?
"Proven Feasibility of People Losing Weight Whilst Eating Whatever, Whenever and However They Like"
"How to Lose Weight without Skipping Meals: 5 Proven Tips"
2. Seduce with your introduction
The purpose of your introduction is to get readers interested in reading the article to the end, where your "call to action" is. Here, show just enough of what the article offers without satisfying the need.
Adding a numbered list or table of content at the end of the introduction is a great way to leave hints.
In the introduction, establish an understanding of the problem. Highlight the consequences of leaving the problem unsolved and succinctly explain how your article solves the problem.
Share an interesting insight, a statistic, a fact, a study, a quote, or an anecdote to grab attention. Be sure not to get carried away though. Your introduction must address the search intent squarely.
Your introduction should be brief, about 70 to 120 words. It's better to start with a short simple sentence, even sentence fragments are okay. Because a complex sentence at the beginning can signal that your article would be difficult to read.
3. Offer value in your content
The most important reason people return to a blog is that they found it useful the first time. Your blog post should genuinely help readers not just be focused on selling. A truly helpful article is impossible to ignore.
Don't just post a bunch of facts or regurgitate old advice. Boldly share your professional opinion, analyze trends, and shed new insight into an old problem.
That's how you show that you are passionately trying to help the reader through your article. It's also how you become a thought leader.
Your advice should be easy to consume. Use simple words and terms, and explain processes clearly in a step-by-step manner. It helps to personalize your content–writing with a particular reader in mind–as well.
So before your next blog article goes online, critically examine it for usefulness. Does it explain a theory, describe a product's usefulness, help with troubleshooting or teach some technique?
4. Make your post scannable
The internet is teeming with blog content; not all are worthwhile. So readers scan posts to determine if it's worth reading before committing. It helps them consume important information within seconds.
Scannable posts are easy to read. Readers don't have to strain their eyes or trouble their brains trying to navigate long paragraphs. Posts formatted to be scannable have a polished look to them.
To make your article scannable, use 1-4 concise sentences for each paragraph. Text formatting like italics, bold, highlighting, blockquotes, bullet points, and numbered lists are useful tools.
Long blocks of text with no breaks are overwhelming. So you should use subheaders liberally to break up the blog into sections. They serve as mental pit stops. Your subheaders should not be cryptic, shallow, or too revealing.
It's crucial to maintain a consistent format for crafting the subheaders throughout the article. Arrange the sections in a sequential order to create a logical flow of information. Try to keep the word count and display format within each section as uniform as possible.
5. Conclude your article brilliantly
Your conclusion wraps up the article nicely. It should be short but also pack a punch. A conclusion reminds the readers of the main points of the article and most times includes the CTA.
To write your conclusion, state the problem and solutions your article provided. Go on to remind the readers of the benefits of following the advice and motivate them to take action.
The essence of creating a compelling blog post is to convince readers to take action, so don't miss the opportunity to craft a solid CTA.
If your next post is connected with the current one, you can tease it in the conclusion. It rouses readers' interest in the next post and generates traffic. You can also use a profound question to encourage readers to share their opinions in the comment section of your blog.
A brilliant conclusion should carry a note of finality. Adding new information at that point gives a feeling of incompleteness, so avoid that mistake.
6. Edit for a polished finish
After your first draft is done, take a break to give your eyes and mind some rest. Then come back to polish your blog article. Editing your article is so important as mistakes can cost you readership and sales.
Key ways to identify phishing attacks are spelling and grammar errors. So if your article contains blunders, it sets off warning bells. A UK study revealed that businesses may be losing millions of dollars in online sales due to spelling errors.
To start editing go through your post and remove anything that doesn't add value. Replace difficult words with simpler synonyms. Read the entire article as one piece to check its coherence. The sections, paragraphs, and points should flow into one another progressively.
Check to be sure your subheadings hierarchy is in order–no skipping from H1 to H4.
Then check for spelling and grammar errors with tools like Grammarly or Small SEO Tools. Copyscape is a good tool for plagiarism checks. Yoast Real-time Content Analysis allows you to check for passive voice, readability, meta description, and keyword distribution.
Extra tips for crafting compelling blog posts
7. Use verifiable statistics
Facts make your article authoritative but are sure to stick to authentic statistics. Blogs that carry unverifiable facts are tagged as sensationalist and that's not a good look for a business blog.
8. Meta description
Creating a meta description is essentially an SEO task but a good meta description works like a mini introduction. It supports your headline and draws readers in.
9. Add visual appeal
A study showed that compared to text, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain. Including visuals like pictures, charts, infographics, illustrations, videos, tables, etc. enhances your article. Be careful though as disconnected images will confuse readers.
Conclusion
Crafting an engaging blog post may pose a challenge. However, incorporating a strong headline, informative content, a scannable layout, and a memorable conclusion can help achieve success.
Seeking our expert assistance is acceptable and will alleviate the burden of producing high-performing content for your business. Simply fill out this contact form.