Many types of businesses find that posting regular blogs online can be an effective method of engaging with potential customers, driving more traffic to your website and, ultimately, converting clicks into sales. In addition to directly driving customers to your site, a blog post can have other advantages in terms of online marketing and brand building – for example, the more blogs you have on your website, the more content pages your site has and, in turn, there are more pages for web search engines to crawl and direct searches to. This means that as well as attracting potential customers through social media links, there is a greater likelihood of online searches being directed to your website.
However, there is a difference between churning out content for its own sake, and providing high-quality content that will attract links and, perhaps most importantly, provide genuine value to the audience. So what are the secrets to writing a quality, high-performing blog post? Here are three key factors to consider:
- The importance of keywords.Providing engaging, high-quality content to your target audience is at the core of writing an effective blog post, but it would be disingenuous to pretend that search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just as important. It’s probably fair to say that SEO has been used quite cynically over the years, with businesses stuffing blogs with keywords purely to attract search clicks. More recent changes to search algorithms mean that simply jamming keywords into a blog post isn’t enough to result in high-ranking search results. However, researching and using keywords is still important as, at the most basic level, it helps Google and other search engines know what your content is about. Keyword research can also help you to keep your content focused on what your audience is interested in, and what engages them.
- Think beyond the words.The heart of a successful blog post is, of course, the writing and the information, advice or insight that you are providing to your audience. However, the fact is that human brains are geared to process visual content more quickly than text information. It’s therefore important to give careful consideration to the visuals that will accompany your blog post. This could take the form of relevant photographs and graphics. You may be in a position to produce these in-house; however, there are many sites online that offer options for either royalty-free or purchased photos and graphics, for example stock.xchng, Pixabay and Shutterstock. Infographics can also be an excellent way of imparting information and summarizing pertinent data. It may even be appropriate to include a short video clip to complement your written blog post.
- Know your audience and write for them.This is arguably the most important factor of producing an effective blog post. There are immeasurable benefits in understanding what topics will engage, inform and ultimately provide value to your key target audience. Ideally, your blog post should solve a problem for the readers, or provide a unique and fresh insight into either your industry or your brand. An insightful and well-written blog post can help position your brand as a thought leader in your sector.
At Beyond Fifteen we offer world-class public relations and social media marketing services. Contact us today to discuss how we can help your brand achieve its goals.