How to Create Remarkable Blog Content that Attracts New Followers
Your business blog is an essential content marketing tool that solidifies your presence and expertise in the industry. Blogging enhances your inbound efforts by giving you valuable content to share with your social media followers, email list, and new prospects as you show up in the search engines. It positions you as a thought-leader, a key ingredient to building trust with your audience.
Yet, with so much emphasis on creating content, how do you separate your blog posts from the sea of articles being published daily? What will give you the slight edge to attract ideal customers to your content?
The answer: creating remarkable content that WOWs your target market. Quality-rich articles that engages helps you stand out from the crowd. You’ll capture attention and draw likely customers to your brand.
Here are six key steps to producing amazing blog content.
#1 Know Who You’re Blogging to
A successful content marketing strategy starts with having a clear understanding of who you’re speaking to in your articles. Perhaps the most important step, intimately knowing your target audience allows you to focus on topics that best resonate with their interests and needs. Your blogging strategy will be much more effective because you’re directing your message towards this specific market.
Developing detailed buyer personas is strongly recommended to gaining clarity of your audience. Surveys work well in getting feedback from your social followers and current email list to discover what they would like to hear more of.
#2 Craft a Compelling Title
Your title gives the first impression of your blog post. It determines whether your prospect will click and continue reading or move on. Headlines also impact SEO and social shares. Therefore, taking a few minutes to craft the most compelling title is well worth the time.
Consider the following tips to grab attention with your title:
- Keep it short and concise between 8-12 words
- Mention the benefit or outcome readers will gain from your article
- Include descriptive and power words to really make your title pop!
- Listicles, how-to’s, and questions make excellent blog titles
- Use tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to help improve your titles
#3 Use Easy Formatting
The majority of your readers will be engaging with your blog content from their mobile device. Statistics continue to prove that people are accessing the Internet from their smartphone at home than desktop. Therefore, formatting your articles for mobile is a must if you want to keep visitors on your post.
Subheadings are perfect for breaking up your content so it doesn’t appear jumbled and overwhelming. Short paragraphs with 2-3 sentences allow readers to scan through to glean key pieces and get what they need.
Numbers and bullet-points are also big formatting tools to make it easy to read. Use them to your visitor’s advantage…they will appreciate it!
#4 Include Images and Interactive Content
Visuals have an incredible impact on user engagement. Hubspot shares that articles that include an image once for every 75-100 words receive double the number of social shares than articles who do not include the same visuals. Adding images enriches and complements your text, making it appealing to the eye.
Additionally, interactive content like slide shows, infographics, calculators, videos, audios, surveys, and polls augments your post while improving user-experience. It keeps visitors engaged and responsive to your post. The longer people remain on your page, the better for SEO ranking.
Commit to adding a variety of multimedia to your content. You’ll cater to different learning preferences and make your article much more attractive to read.
#5 Incorporate Best On-Page SEO Tactics
Implementing on-page SEO techniques improves visibility in search. The good news is, there are simple things you can do to optimize your blog post for SEO. Here’s a simple checklist to use during your content creation process:
- Choose 1-2 long-tail keywords that your audience is actively searching for
- Sprinkle your keyword naturally throughout your post, particularly mentioning it within the first 100 words
- Start your title-tag with the keyword
- Use the keyword for your image file name, alt tag, title, description, and caption
- Go for SEO-friendly URLs
- Include outbound links to authoritative sources
- Don’t forget to add 2-3 of your own links within your post
- Long-form content of 1500 words or more performs better on Google
#6 Clear Call to Action
The final step to creating remarkable blog content is to include a call to action that tells your readers what to do next. The CTA should align with the intended goal of your article. Whether you want to increase brand awareness, foster engagement, collect leads or generate sales, your call to action should support this objective.
For example, if you want to increase engagement, post a question at the end of your article and ask them to share their feedback in the comments below. If you want to boost lead generation, include an opt-in box at the end with a benefit (lead magnet) that readers will gain in exchange for their contact info.
The point is, keep them further engaged by giving clear instructions to your next step.
Conclusion
Maintaining a blogging schedule will prove to be a valuable asset to your content marketing strategy. Use this guide during your content creation process to publish remarkable blog posts that relate to your audience. With consistency, you’ll grow your following, bolster lead generation, and cement your authority in the industry.
Much success.