If you’re here, you’re probably wondering why your blogs haven’t reached the people you want them to reach. With over 4.4 million blogs being posted every day getting your blog out there is no easy task. There are a few things to consider when it comes to writing a blog:
- Your audience.
- A compelling story.
- Your own expertise in the field.
- It’s all about SEO, baby!
Let’s have a look at how these four factors can come together to increase the reach of your blog.
1. Your Audience
If you are creating content to drive traffic to a particular website, you must have a target audience in mind while planning your blog. Knowing who your target audience will help you weed out the ‘window shoppers’ from engaged individuals. Look at different factors like:
- Demographics: age, gender, location etc., as necessary.
- What they want to know.
- How do they want to consume this information
Knowing your audience will allow you to build a blog post that caters to their tastes. For example, the language you use for a more mature audience may be more formal than that used for a blog post aimed at teenagers. You may want to use infographics instead of walls of text for certain audiences too.
2. A Compelling Story
Humans have a natural affinity to good stories. Your blog needs to have a good story to tell – a story that can be told naturally and (seemingly) effortlessly. A sense of novelty or driving curiosity can go a long way toward driving readership too. And it’s not just what you say – it’s how you say it that matters too. According to Julian Shapiro, your blog should be:
- Counter-intuitive — “Oh, I never realized the world worked that way.”
- Counter-narrative — “Wow, that’s not how I was told the world worked!”
- Shock and awe — “That’s crazy. I would have never believed it.”
- Elegant articulations — “Beautiful. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
- Make someone feel seen — “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel!”
Use a narrative hook to keep them engaged.
3. Use Your Own Expertise in the Field:
You want your audience to trust what you write. Create content within your own field of expertise, and you’ll find audiences resonating with what you have to say. Spend time researching information that you aren’t completely comfortable with. Share credible sources you have used.
4. It’s All About SEO, baby!
You may be the next Shakespeare, but that won’t matter unless your content reaches the right people. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) kicks in. You want your blog to rank highly on search engines which is why you need to make sure you include all the information they need to know that your blog is the one readers should be paying attention to. Some SEO best practices include:
- A great title that includes the blog topic.
- A meta description containing relevant keywords.
- A descriptive URL.
- Images that contain alternative text.
- Backlinks to your own website and links to credible external sources.
Keyword research is, well, key to reaching the right audiences and making sure your blog ranks on search engines. You can read more about keyword research here.
Ending your blog with a Call To Action (CTA) then lets readers know what to do with all the information you have given them.
For example, now that you know all about the effort that goes into writing a compelling blog post, take some of the strain off your hands. Get in touch with Agency Media today to have content specialists create the blogs you need to reach the audiences you want to.