6 Useful Steps for Creating an Amazing Blog Post

With 89% of B2B marketers using content marketing to advance their business goals, how can you separate your blog posts from the sea of content being produced online? More marketers and brands are blogging now than ever before in an effort to appeal to today’s consumer. It’s indeed the best way to increase brand exposure, share expertise, capture new leads, and grow revenue sales.

The key is creating blog content that WOWs your readers and makes a memorable impression of your brand. Doing so gives you a slight competitive edge while furthering your own business objectives. In this guide, you’ll discover 6 useful steps for creating an amazing blog post to bolster your content marketing strategy.

#1 Speak Directly to Your Readers

A huge advantage of blogging is the ability to build relationships with your audience, allowing them to truly get to know your brand. It’s important that they not only relate to your message but also how you convey your message. Writing your blog post as if you’re having a direct, face-to-face conversation with your reader helps humanize your brand and keeps them engaged with your content.

Therefore, keep in mind your target audience when creating your blog post. What tone will you use? How will you publish your post in a way that connects with your readers? Your responses will guide you in producing blog articles that resonate.

Developing buyer personas is perhaps the best way to completely understanding your audience. This entire process helps hone your ideal customer, providing a clear picture of exactly who your customer is and the pains, challenges, questions, and obstacles they have.

#2 Use a Compelling Headline

The title is the very first thing your visitors see before indulging in your blog post. It’s the first impression and can make (or break) the opportunity for continued engagement. Crafting a headline that is compelling and quickly captures attention will help improve readers’ responsiveness with your article.

Here are a few tips to writing a catchy headline to better your blog titles:

• Numbered lists and how-to’s make excellent blog titles, setting the readers expectation
• Keep it short, between 8-12 words to increase social shares and improve SEO
• Naturally include your keyword throughout your post
• Mention the benefit (if feasible) people will gain from reading your post
• Use tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to help improve your titles over time

#3 Add Visual or Interactive Content for Better Engagement

Did you know that articles that include an image once every 75-100 words receive double the number of social shares than posts with fewer images (Source: Hubspot)? Additionally, research shows that interactive content marketing helps businesses to get distinction in their market, especially among immediate competitors (Source: Jeff Bullas).

Including visuals and/or interactive content in your blog post will make it amazing and enrich user-experience, keeping people on your site longer which helps with SEO ranking. Use visuals to complement your text. Infographics, videos, slideshows, and GIFs are cool tools to embed in your content and highlight areas of your message.

Interactive content such as calculators, surveys, polls, games, and audios allow readers to get more involved in your post, separating you from the other content they may have read. The good news is that some of these content pieces can be used to build your list. Before taking your survey, for example, have visitors give their email so you can inbox the results.

#4 Include Best On-Page SEO Tactics

Optimizing your blog post for SEO greatly improves your ranking in the search engines and being found by potential customers. Including these best practices is essential to boosting traffic and for better search visibility. Use the following tips as a checklist on-page SEO:

• Choose a long-tail keyword that your audience is actively searching for
• Mention your keyword within the first 100 words
• Start your title-tag with the keyword
• Be sure that your website is mobile-friendly
• Use SEO-friendly URLs
• Leverage outbound links to related pages
• Don’t forget to add 2-3 of your own links within your post
• Include keyword for your image file name, alt tag, title, description and caption
• Aim for long-form content of 1500 words or more…it performs better on Google

Not sure if your website meets SEO best practices? Request a free SEO analysis here for tips on how to increase traffic to your site, grow leads, and improve company revenue.

#5 Use Headers and Short Paragraphs for Easy Reading

Since most of your visitors will be perusing your blog post with their mobile device, you want to make it easy for them to read so it doesn’t look jumbled and overwhelming. Subheadings work well in breaking up your content so it flows smoothly.

Also, short paragraphs allow readers to scan through your post to glean key pieces and get what they need. Bullet points and numbers help to achieve this same goal. Use these formatting tools to your advantage…and the readers!

#6 Ask for Engagement

Many blog articles actually fail to give a CTA at the end of their post, causing missed opportunities for capturing new leads or fostering engagement from their audience. Telling your readers exactly what to do next solidifies your blogging strategy, positioning you to generate real results from your posts.

Get people involved in your message by asking your visitors to take action. Call-to-actions can range from sharing your post to their social networks, leaving a thoughtful comment to initiate conversation, or asking for the opt-in to receive your free offer. Decide on one clear CTA and post it at the end of your article.

Conclusion

Maintaining a blogging cadence is vital to attracting fresh visitors to your site and increasing brand awareness. Utilize this checklist to bolster your blog posts, which in turn, will boost your online presence and keep viewers responsive to your content. Having it near during your blog creation process will aid in publishing content that gets in front of your ideal market and promotes user engagement.