How To Write A Successful Blog Post

Writing can be time consuming, but the value in creating effective content can be seen in increased profits, lead generation, an uptick in traffic, and more. What’s the secret to to producing quality content, reaching your audience, generating high levels of organic traffic, all while managing your time? Check out these guidelines on how to write a blog post and drive these metrics. 

What does my blog post need to be successful?

Digital marketers are constantly looking for ways to create unique content. Here are a handful of things to consider while attracting readers to keep them on your site.  

• Choose a topic that you’re knowledgeable about and is relevant to your reader and brand. This is an opportunity for you to serve as an expert resource for your readers. Also, consider writing about topics where your readers may need more information. Educating your audience is the first step to becoming a thought leader in your industry. 
• Define and write for your audience. Before writing your post, ask yourself: Who is my audience? Narrowing down exactly who your target audience is, will make it easier to determine what you to write about and how it should sound. 
• Create a hook. Get your readers want to take the time to absorb your blog. Do this by avoiding unnecessary jargon and getting right to the point. Have a descriptive title and a strong headline. Grab your reader’s attention and keep them interested with the depth of your knowledge. 
• Make your language and voice relatable. While you may be highly educated on your blog topic, your readers likely are not. Consider knowledge gaps and write with the purpose of educating. If you’re writing for multiple audiences, have something to offer both. For example, if your content is more technical, provide definitions or valuable internal links to guide readers in the direction of learning more about the topic. 

What should my blogging strategy be?

Now that you know what your post should include, it’s time to consider a broader strategy. A blog strategy should contain a clear direction for what you intend to get out of the content. Determine what your takeaway is by outlining your strategy. 

1. Choose the best person to write each post 

2. Outline your post format 

3. Research the topic using valuable information about your topic from industry experts 

4. Write enough content to make it educational and successful 

5. Point readers to a clear CTA if you have one whether it’s a follow-up article, demo request, or a sign-up button 

How does blogging help my SEO? 

From an SEO point of view, blogging is an effective way to create traffic-generating content. By following SEO best practices, you can boost your site to rank and generate the most traffic possible. Below are a few tactics to get started:

• Provide links to internal pages on your site. Writing new content that relates to already existing content is a way to show your site is succinct. Link posts together in order to prove it and choose them wisely. 
• Incorporate relevant and highly-searched keywords to your blog post to improve its chances of ranking for specific keywords. You can use Data Cube to search for keywords that match your content to ensure visibility and, also, discover already ranking content. You can also use Instant to find trending keywords. Using this feature, you can rule out keywords that won’t produce a lot of traffic or drive enough leads. 
• Add high-quality images and optimize them for speed, size, and the keyword you want to rank for. Remember to compress your images to be smaller in order for your page to load faster and add image alt text describing the image using the keyword. 
• Research your competitors. Investigate what your competitors are doing on their blogs to give yourself a unique perspective.  

How many categories does my blog post need? 

A category helps organize your content into different subjects. Each post will belong to only one category. For the blog as a whole, somewhere between five and seven categories would be ideal. In addition to organizing your content, categories also used to give your readers a better user experience and navigate your content.  

Using your top keywords as categories is also a good way to boost visibility for these terms. 

How many tags does my blog post need?

Tags are a way to refine your categories. If you have a few different topics within a category, their posts can be organized into tags. Too many tags creates a poor site hierarchy, which is why one to three tags is an optimal number per post. 

When deciding how many tags per category, ideally there’s a limit to the number of tags each category supports. Again, we’d recommend roughly three to five tags per category, but there are no hard and fast rules. 

Go write your first blog post 

Providing your audience and website with healthy, well-written content continuously is a valuable way to increase traffic and drive new leads to your website. While blogging has been around for a long time, it doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soon. Now, you can utilize new blogs to better your SEO and become a thought leader rather than just simply provide the internet with information. 

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