Whether you are a budding writer or are delving into the world of digital marketing, writing a captivating, engaging blog post is a crucial skill to have in your arsenal. Blogs are a brilliant way to grow your brand, advertise your services, or teach readers about topics you are passionate about. Writing a blog post is easy, but writing a great post requires a little more work.
Choose a Good Topic/ Find Your Niche
Choosing a topic to write about is the first step to creating a stellar piece of content that grabs your readers’ attention. There are approximately 600 million active blogs on the World Wide Web, so trying to stand out from the crowd is essential. It is far easier to write fantastic content about a subject you are passionate about, and your blog will get noticed more if your writing is about a niche product.
You may have expert-level knowledge about making home improvements on a budget, or there may be little you do not know about the Women’s National Basketball Association. Japanese RPG video games could be your forte, or you may have an unrivaled passion for television and film and love nothing more than writing in-depth reviews about Netflix shows. Write about something you love, and that love will shine through in your writing.
Come Up With a Catchy Blog Title
Some writings pen an incredible article packed with information, keeping the reader hooked from the first sentence to the last word. However, that post could go unread if a killer blog title does not accompany it.
The title of your blog piece is often your only chance of enticing a reader to stick around long enough to consider reading your article. Your title advertises what your content is about. Readers usually want to be entertained, educated, or read up on controversy.
With that in mind, put yourself in a potential reader’s shoes. If you have some stellar content about cheap ways to spruce up your garden, let visitors know exactly what they are about to read. Instead of a title such as “Good Cheap Garden Furniture,” consider titles like “The Best Furniture Under $30 That Will Transform Your Garden” or “The Ultimate Guide to a Celebrity Garden on a Budget.” The second two examples grab your attention, while the first blends into the background and is, for want of a better word, boring.
Hook Your Reader In the Opening Paragraph
The opening paragraph of any article, the introduction, is second in importance to your title. Your introduction is often your only opportunity to keep a reader engaged and wanting to consume the rest of your work. Some writers prefer to write the body of their article before the title, but it is entirely your choice.
Hooking your readers is not a simple task, but you can follow a few tried and tested techniques. First, consider posing a question or suggesting that you will offer solutions to a problem; remember that people like being educated.
Consider taking a controversial stance about a subject. However, do not alienate your readers by being offensive, nor should you open with some controversy only for the rest of your blog post to be vanilla.
Structure Your Article to Make it Scannable
Most visitors to blogs and websites do not read the content as they would read a book. Instead, they tend to scan down the article and look for snippets of relevant information. Many people lead busy lives, so they speed-read articles before returning to them later when they have made time to do so. How do you make your article scannable to a reader?
- Highlight keywords and phrases using bolded text: The reader will naturally be drawn to anything that stands out from the text, and bolding is a great way to do this.
- Use subheadings liberally: Readers are instantly put off by a wall of text on a website, so split up your content into subheadings to make them easier to navigate and digest
- Consider using bullet points: Bullet points are perfect for lists, such as the one you are reading now!
- Write short sentences: Long sentences can be challenging to understand, especially for someone skimming through your content. Keep those sentences short.
- Ensure your paragraphs are short: Paragraphs should be kept to fewer than 100 words to help avoid the dreaded wall of text.
High-Definition Images are a Must-Have
Images can make even the dries content spring to life by breaking up the monotony of words. Images give your reader a well-earned break from consuming your content. Always ensure the images you use are not copyrighted and are royalty-free, are high-definition and not pixelated, and are relevant to the words they accompany.
Images do not have to be photographs; you could create a nice infographic that you created, too.
Also, every blog post you publish should have a vibrant lead image. Potential readers are automatically drawn towards images, leading them to your beautifully crafted title and onto the hook of your content. Get them that far down the line, and they will likely read all of your work.
Edit and Proofread Your Work Before Publishing
Your blog post may be the most informative piece ever published on the internet, but readers are unlikely to return for more if it is strewn with spelling and grammatical errors. Write your post, save it as a draft, and edit it at a later date. Editing as soon as you have finished writing often leads to missing errors because you are in the writing mindset, not an editing one.
You may want to consider one of the top editing tools, such as Grammarly, to assist you in your proofreading. An error-free article is what you should aim for before publishing.
Make Sure The Timing Is Right
It is essential to publish your blog post at a time when it has the potential to get more eyes on it. Use analytics to discover when your blog or website enjoys the most traffic and ensure that content that is specific to one time zone is published when people from that area are most likely to be online.
