If you blog, you obviously want people to read what you are blogging about. With all the content out there, sometimes getting eyes on your words can be a challenge.
Before launching Social Creative, I started a personal blog for fun. Harley House was my first go at blogging and a chance for me to express my writing creativity. I wasn’t writing to make money, I was writing to inspire my readers and share my thoughts. Still, I wanted people to read my stuff; I wanted to write high-quality posts.
If you’re a business owner or a blogger who wants to make money, you have to have a strategy for your blog posts. Just putting your thoughts on paper won’t cut it. So how do you create high-quality posts that leave your readers wanting more? For starters, you have to have a plan.
Create an Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar should be the first place you start.
You need to have a clear idea of what you will write about and when you will post your content. Just like your social media activities need to be consistent, so do your blog posts. If you post once every two months, your readers will likely not be loyal followers. Having a well-defined editorial calendar will keep you on track and provide you with a blueprint for your blogging strategy.
Create Content that Helps Your Readers
Before writing a blog post, you should ask yourself why you are writing it. If you don’t have a good answer, chances are no one will want to read it. The high-quality content you write about should provide your readers with value. They are coming to you to learn something because they trust you.
My business provides companies social media management and writing solutions; therefore, my blog posts are geared towards helping people learn more about social media, how to get better results on their social media networks and how to write better.
If you’re a real estate agent, you would want some of your blog posts to help your clients navigate the home-buying or selling process. Regardless of what you do, your posts should help those you are targeting.
And remember, it’s important to talk about yourself, your thoughts and your experiences. This will help readers connect with you.
Create Something New
This tip goes hand-in-hand with creating content that helps your readers. With so much information out there, it’s important that you create high-quality content that stands out. You need to provide your readers with something new. That can be challenging, but it can be done.
Maybe you know of a new and improved way of doing something, or maybe you have a first-hand experience that is worthy of sharing. Either way, you need to determine what makes your content stand out and stick to creating your post around that.
Don’t Forget About SEO
While you’re creating content to provide your readers with valuable information, you also need to remember search engine optimization (SEO). You need search engines to find you, as they can be your first source of traffic.
Search engines use keywords, so you’ll want to choose a certain keyword for each post. Once you determine the post keyword, you can place it in various places like the post title, subheadings, paragraphs in the post and the post meta description.
If you’re using WordPress, I highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast offers some great tips on SEO for blog posts.
Make Your Post Title Count
As people scroll through their Facebook news feed, they are bombarded with content. So how do you get their attention? One of the main ways is to create an “I want to read this!” blog post title.
Long titles that don’t include your keyword won’t help you much, but numbered lists in blog titles will.
If your blog post is about ways to stay healthy during the holidays, which title do you think sounds better?
10 Easy Ways to Eat Healthy During the Holidays
OR
Stay on Track During the Holidays: What You Should Not Eat
I think we all know the obvious answer. The Content Marketing Institute shares some other ways to create a killer title.
Make Your Content Organized and Easy to Read
Nothing is worse that clicking on a blog post and feeling like this is the last thing you want to read. You don’t want to feel like you’re reading an essay. In order to get your readers to stick around, organize your content for them and make your post easy to read.
You can do that by including:
- Headings
- Subheadings
- Bulleted lists
- Numbered lists
Also, you want to remember to write a clear introduction to what you are about to share and wrap it up with a solid conclusion or call to action.
Use Your Social Media Accounts to Your Advantage
If you’re active on social media, you have an awesome opportunity to share your high-quality blog posts. Create engaging social media posts around your blog posts. By sharing your posts on your social media networks, you can drive traffic to your website and define yourself as a subject matter expert.
Also, don’t forget to add social share buttons to all of your posts; this makes it easier for your readers to share your content on their own social networks. I use the Sumo plugin for this.
Don’t Forget to Proofread
You have one chance to make a first impression. Once you’ve created your high-quality post, you want to make sure you don’t have typos and that your words actually make sense. Read your content over several times. I actually like to print my blog post and read it aloud.
Creating a post that engages your readers isn’t as hard as you think. By using some of the above tips, you’re on your way to writing better blog posts and establishing yourself as an expert in whatever it is you do.
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