Attract readers with quality ontents
There is no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all method when it comes to blog monetisation and audience building. It takes hard work, a smidgen of good luck and judicious use of best practices and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques.
Were you hoping for an easier answer? Sorry!
“If you build it, they will come” simply cannot be applied to blogging. We live in a world drowning in content and the ability to cut through all of the noise – regardless of how niche your blog purports to be – takes an awful lot more than a clever title and a few social shares.
When boiled down, your blog’s content is the key to attracting readers. Quality content will get noticed and encourage those that enjoy it to share your hard work with their friends and colleagues.
But how do you write great content? What are the constituent elements that make up quality blog content? In this post, we’ve got 8 awesome tips for creating blogs that will drive visitors to your website. Some you’ll have heard of before (they bear repeating) while others may surprise you.
Ready? Let’s go!
1. Spend 80% of your creative thinking on the title
You could write the best blog post anyone has ever written in your chosen niche, but if the title doesn’t demand attention, no one will read it. That’s why you should spend the majority of your creative thinking time on the title.
Include the key word you want to rank for and wrap it up in a short sentence that screams ‘click me!’. Use alliteration, promise an answer to a problem and use strong adjectives (e.g. “10 incredibly simple methods for avoiding poor TripAdvisor reviews”).
If your title idea doesn’t arrive immediately, don’t worry; start writing the post regardless. Most great bloggers do this, as they find that inspiration for the title arrives during that process.
2. Become a better writer
The term ‘blogger’ has, unfortunately, become rather more prevalent than ‘writer’ in recent years and, as a result, blog posts are often poorly written by people with bad literacy skills.
If you want to become a blogger and attract a large audience that waits in anticipation for your next post, you need to become a better writer. No one is expecting you to be the next William Shakespeare, but the ability to construct sentences that are entertaining and easy to digest is a must if your blog is to gain any kind of traction on the web.
3. Create an outline
Few great blog posts emerge perfectly from the first draft. ‘Free writing’ is a technique used by bloggers that enables them to get going without worrying about the quality of the content. The idea here is to simply create an outline of the post.
Just write; you know the topic and you’ll hopefully have formed the basis for the title, so you’ve got something to go on. Create a rough beginning, middle and end – you can polish it up later.
4. Treat it as a story
We all love a story, which is why you should treat every blog you write as its own mini tale of wonder and adventure.
Your rough outline should have helped you develop the beginning, middle and end for your post, and that can in turn be the basis for your story. Take the readers on a journey and, if possible, leave them hanging at the end; a cliff-hanger is a great way to build an audience that will return for future instalments.
5. Use a ‘lead magnet’
Lead magnets are typically used in business as a way to encourage prospects to engage with a sign-up form on the company website, and the same principal can be used in all forms of blogging.
Try and think of something you can give away to readers of your blog for free. The most common example is an e-book, so something of value relating to your niche will usually work wonders. A free guide or checklist may be enough to draw people to your website.
In order for people to download your lead magnet, they should be asked to provide their email address. In doing so, you’ll be able to build up an incredibly valuable database of blog subscribers to whom you can email updates whenever you post new content.
6. Include a call-to-action (CTA)
What do you want your visitors to do at the end of the post? Perhaps you want them to download your free ebook, or make a comment on the post. Whatever it is, you need to include some form of CTA on your posts if they are to get noticed.
Equally, you may want them to share your hard work, and a note to ‘share this post on social media’ is a brilliant way to increase its reach and draw in more visitors with little to no effort on your part.
7. Use plenty of visuals
Imagery and video is a must if you want your blog to get noticed. Use imagery to further illustrate your points and, if possible, include supporting video. The latter in particular is very ‘sticky’, which means people will stay on your blog post longer, thus increasing the chance of them sharing it with their friends.
8. Optimise the SEO
Search engine optimisation isn’t the dark art some would have you believe – it is actually based almost entirely on common sense. Google likes quality, relevant content and will promote your blog above others if you deliver the goods.
Ensure you include keywords in your post title and within the copy itself (but don’t go mad – too much ‘keyword stuffing’ is a bad thing). Update the meta description (the little snippet Google displays in search results) to make it relevant and keyword rich and make sure all of your images have appropriate alt tags.
Internal linking and external links to authoritative websites are all a must; SEO and blogging really do go hand-in-hand.
Summary
The list above is non-exhaustive, but if you follow the tips we’ve focused on in this post, your blog will begin to get noticed and attract those all important readers. Just remember the golden rule: the key to your blog’s success lies in one thing – quality content people will feel duty bound to share.
Auto’s bio:
Izzy, a University student is also and SEO specialist. When she is not working on her University assignments, she likes to keep up with what is happening in the digial marketing industy.