There’s no questioning the fact that content marketing is a key success factor for any Digital Marketing Campaign. Hence it’s important to learn how valuable and impactful content is to be able to convey our expertise to our targeted audience. My research and personal experiences gained over the years writing some great posts and some not so great posts have lead me to finally share my secrets to many of my customers who have been asking for it.
We all know that well-written blog posts can open floodgates to social shares, site traffic, faster conversions, higher search engine rankings and lead generation, to name a few. Nonetheless, very few bloggers come up with appropriate titles, let alone write useful and captivating content that could get the numbers rolling for them.
Here I share 7 S.E.C.R.E.T.S (using SECRETS as an acronym) to writing a blog post that could profit your business.
Sense – Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic
Basically every decision we make is based on our senses. They are Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Smell and Taste. Online, only the first 3 matter!
- Visual – Attention Grabber
There is more to a blog posts than just words and headings. Blog posts can also benefit from using attention grabbing visuals or images. Besides being appropriate and relevant these visuals should convey the overall feeling of your posts and should clearly illustrate an analogy that’s part of your blog’s main idea. Additionally, they should complement the post and its title.
- Auditory – Easy to remember Keywords
Keywords are the biggest source of driving traffic to your blog. One of the best ways is to use keywords that are easy to remember and then incorporating these keywords in the title of the article. Furthermore, you can use sub-sets of these keywords in the main body, in and around links in your post and image alt-tags.
- Kinesthetic – Appeal/Credibility
You can make your post more appealing by using acronyms e.g., (SECRETS as I have used in this article), using third party mentions e.g. (influential blogger, Brain Clark – you’ll find a mention later in the post) or quotes and links. The bottom line: try to capture the emotion of the reader in a way that they not only feel benefited but also take a desired action, eg share it with their audience to spread the word further!
Effect – Purpose – Outcome
Before you go ahead with writing your blog post, or even come up with a title, ask yourself these simple questions: what unique angle is there to my article? and how can it help my audience? While pre-defining the desired “Effect” your blog post should be generating it doesn’t sound like an earth shattering rocket science discovery to you at first, but it sure is the single most important secret to writing a great blog post.
With the internet cluttered with millions of blogs already, you hardly stand a chance to come up with a topic that isn’t there already. Hence you need to find a unique angle to your chosen topic to make your post stand out. Secondly, great bloggers focus on the outcome of the post. In order to have the maximum impact on the readers, an amazing blog post is one that keeps the interests of the readers in mind, tells them something they didn’t know before, targets their pain points and hence adds value.
Call to Action – Post Read Actions
Questions at the end of the articles such as: “Did you find the 7 SECRETS to writing successful blog posts useful? Or “Do you think the points discussed made an impact on you? are examples of “call to action”.
Post read actions or “call to action” aim to impact the readers of your post in a way that they can take immediate action. Leave a comment, call for more information, view a demo, buy now, subscribe, invite to an event and so on, are various types of call to actions. They provide a direction to your audience, turn their focus to your site and can be a great way to measure your blog’s success.
Sometimes, you may need to offer a little extra to sweeten the deal. Example of an actionable takeaway could be “Download our FREE E-book on ‘10 techniques for writing effective calls to action’”
Recognizable – Relatable and Simple – Industry Specific keywords
Your blog post must present a clear view-point, have an easy-to-read structure and should be simple to comprehend for anyone. In other words, it should be recognizable and relatable.
Don’t clutter it with too many technical terms that a layman will find hard to understand. Moreover, sometimes blog posts have an overwhelming amount of information, and if you don’t make it easy to read, understand and remember, the readers may quit your site altogether intimidated by way you have put it down.
Embedded Links – Link Relevant Articles
If you want Google to rank every single page on your site, you need to make sure that it can find it. By embedding links to other articles on your site in a given blog post, you can almost certainly say that the reader would click at least one of them. Using the right keywords in the anchor text and placing them strategically within the post, you can potentially increase your page views.
Interlinking your articles well, provides a pathway to readers to navigate through your blog, stay longer on your site and read more of your content. What more can you ask for?
Title – Attracting Target Market
Brian Clark, CEO of copy-blogger, says that the title is the first and perhaps the only impression you make on a prospective reader. According to one survey, a whopping 80% of the people only read the headline and based upon that, they may never even bother to click on the blog post to read the rest of the article. Hence a catchy title along with a captivating opening paragraph is the key to getting people to start reading.
Sometimes, a clear, concise and self-explanatory title that aims to solve a problem your target audience faces is all that you need to urge the readers to read the rest of the post. Look at the title of this very blog post. Besides being self-explanatory, it adds a little twist by adding the word, “S.E.C.R.E.T.S,” making the title catchy as well.
Social – Sharing Buttons and Writers Profile
You got a visitor on your blog. Congratulations. He reads your post. Great! Likes it. Awesome! Now what? Is there a way he could tell others that he likes your post or share it with people in his circle so they can read it too?
Adding social sharing buttons and social media links allows your site visitors to share your content thereby expanding your audience and increase SEO ranking. Make sure you add buttons to all those social media channels where you’re likely to find your target market.
Also, adding author’s profile (Like you see mine below) at the end of the post gives a sense of credibility and connectivity to the reader. Not only are the readers interested in the content, but they also want to know who wrote the post and what their role in your organization is. This provides yet another opportunity to add a ‘call to action’ to the post, for e.g. “read more articles on writing blog posts by this author”. Here are mine below.
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