Among many other things, the Pandemic has changed the course of marketing for many brands and has shifted the focus on online content generation.
Brands are relying on digital content marketing for organic traffic, recognition and higher conversions more than ever now. Blogging is one such content-generating mode that substantially promotes a business/brand, creates brand awareness, increases traffic and boosts conversions.
What is a Blog Post & Why is it Still Relevant?
To put it precisely, a blog post is written content generated in the form of an article, news or a guide to inform and educate people about a specific query.
Businesses regularly publish blogs on their websites to communicate with their audience and share their thoughts, stories, expert tips and guides. This helps expand brand awareness and establish your brand’s authority.
The more relevant and visible your blog is, the more traffic it will attract, the majority of which will convert into your customers.
So, when you are confused about whether blog posts are still relevant in today’s marketing strategies, the answer is YES.
A relevant, well-written and informative blog post:
- Increases brand’s visibility
- Generates new leads
- Drives engagement
- Allows you to tap into your audience’s needs
- Builds loyalty and trust
- Establishes authority
But one question remains; How do you write a blog post that people will actually read and share with others?
The following tips will help you get started with writing engaging, pertinent and attention-grabbing blogs right away.
1. Identify and Understand Your Audience
Before you begin the writing process, you must familiarize yourself with your audience to understand what they want to read. Anything that does not interest your audience answers their questions, poses solutions to their problems or arouses curiosity will be done in vain.
Therefore, tailoring your blog posts to your audience’s needs and desires should be your priority, and this is where buyer personas come to the rescue.
Your marketing team might have already developed buyer personas that you can refer to. Otherwise, you can utilize the options of research and surveys to understand the basic desires and queries of your audience to come up with a topic that appeals to them.
2. Generate Ideas
This is the time to allow your creative thinking to lead.
Since you have a reasonable knowledge of your audience, their concerns, objections, queries and desires, use this information to generate ideas you think would charm the audience.
Write down as many ideas as you can think of in a single place. Take help from your competitors, see what they are doing and how you can be different and unique.
Now set time to map out how these topics align with your goal and your niche. It is also important to write about things you feel most passionately about and have a strong command of since this is an opportunity to establish your authority in the niche as well.
Remember, coming up with a compelling blog idea is half the work done. If you can nail it, you are already on the way to creating a popular blog post.
3. Come Up With a Catchy and SEO-optimized Blog Title
A catchy blog title that is optimized for the keyword is the first step to getting your link to appear, clicked and opened on the google search.
Give due consideration and thoughts to nailing your first impression. Craft a title that is optimized for SEO, helping it rank higher on the search engine and giving your blog more visibility.
A good title should inform of the purpose, intrigue the reader and follow the best SEO practices.
Keep in find the following while generating your blog title:
- Inform and promise a solution to a query
- Use numbers to provide clarity
- Use open loops to arouse curiosity
- Place your chosen keywords ideally for SEO purposes
- Optimize headline length for readability and SEO
- Be specific
4. Make an Outline
Now that you have settled on an idea and have come up with a striking title, it’s time to write and structure your blog post.
At this point, a million ideas, thoughts and pieces of information would be bombarding your mind, which can get overwhelming to put down on the blank page.
An outline can help organize all those ideas into relevant segments so that you know what to put where for greater impact on the readers.
Quickly create an outline for your blog post. This can include the segment and subheadings you want to include, followed by the main pointers in the form of bullets.
With an outline in front of you, the writing process becomes seamless. Any new idea, information or thought can be fit under a suitable sub-heading. An outline also makes sure you have covered everything that a reader will be interested in.
5. Write, Write and Write
Give yourself the freedom to write freely. Once you begin the writing process, your subconscious mind will be pumped to send your more and more ideas. Don’t hesitate to write them down as they come.
Keep writing in the flow, and do not succumb to the impulse of editing and proofreading. This is what follows after. For now, use your voice to pen your words as effortlessly as they come.
6. Edit, Edit and Edit
This is the most crucial part of what will make or break your blog post.
Read, edit and polish the first draft you wrote to eliminate any typos and grammar mistakes you may have made along the way. Reading it aloud will help you experience if your readers will be able to connect with this piece of writing or if you are offering them a lot of fluff.
Drive out any unnecessary or repetitive information. See if the sentences connect well with the next and where you need to break them to create a new paragraph. Be vigilant of your spelling, punctuation and grammar. You can find a lot of online tools to help you correct them.
Don’t skip this part, no matter how challenging it feels. Take a break between writing and editing, this will allow you to come back with a fresh mind and perspective.
7. Optimize for SEO
You can create a perfectly written blog post, but unless your reader can find it on the search engine, it’s a futile effort. Educate yourself on the best SEO practices. Strategically place the keywords in your headings, subheadings and paragraphs and abide by the readability standards.
The SEO practices will ensure more readers come to your page and your article gets maximum links.
8. Publish and Promote
Now comes the most anticipated part; publishing your post and sharing it with the audience.
Before publishing, commit to yourself to stay committed to your blog, as your audience will be expecting new content often. Stick to a daily or weekly schedule and create content accordingly.
Once you have enough posts on your blog, start networking and promoting your work. Exploring your email lists and using social media is a good place to start. You can also appear as a guest writer on a few credible websites to establish yourself as an esteemed writer and consequently bring them to your platform.
