The importance of blogging as a means to achieve marketing goals is not lost on marketers these days. It’s the reason why 86% of them use blogs as part of their content marketing strategy.
However, a mistake that businesses, especially those that don’t have an experienced content team often make is creating content for the sake of it.
Publishing an average-quality post every week stuffed with keywords is bound to get lost in the vast sea of content on the Internet. It is especially futile when there are so many amazing bloggers out there creating content about everything under the sun.
Creating quality content is not easy. It requires careful selection of topics, superior writing skills (or video editing or graphic designing skills), and expertise. When done right, it boosts your website’s SEO, attracts high-quality organic traffic, builds brand awareness, and leads to conversions.
Before you start planning content, you need to create a neat and attractive website for your blog. You can start by picking a unique and relevant domain name on a new domain extension such as .tech, .online, .site, or .space. These new domain extensions allow you to get creative and ensure that you have a keyword-rich domain name. For example, www.gadgetupdate.tech, www.thebestadvice.online, www.theartistic.space, etc.
If you’re looking to boost your content marketing through high-quality engaging blog posts that rank high on search engines, you need to follow these five steps.
Step 1: Do your keyword research
Before you start creating content for your blog, you need to know what people are looking for. Ask yourself, what does a person who visits your blog type in the search engine box?
Search engines are your biggest source of traffic, so you need to ensure that your blog content is answering questions that your target audience is asking.
Start by doing keyword research to make your content more intent-oriented. This not only helps you in topic research but also in optimizing your content so that it ranks high in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
If you don’t know what the right keywords are for you, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMRush. They will help you find trending keywords in your niche and show you the search volume as well as content already created around them so that you know exactly what you’re dealing with.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to look for long-tail keywords. Such keywords have lower search volumes but that means lesser competition and more focus. Long-tail keywords are especially good for small, local, or niche businesses as they help drive more quality traffic to your website.
For instance, “best running shoes” is a high search volume keyword, but “best running shoes for ankle support” is a long-tail keyword.
Step 2: Craft captivating headlines
Your audience has a wide variety of content to choose from. So how would you convince them that your content is the one to consume?
You do so by captivating them with a great headline. That is the first thing a person sees when they see your content in the search results. It needs to be intriguing enough to get them interested and informative enough to let them know that you have the answers to their question.
Think of it as your elevator pitch. You have 10 seconds to convince potential blog visitors that you have what they are looking for.
While crafting a heading you need to keep the following points in mind:
Simple
Your headline needs to be easily understood. This is not the place to flaunt your vocabulary or use industry jargon. Lack of understanding immediately leads to a lack of interest.
Specific
Set the right expectations by stating exactly what your content contains and what the takeaway is. It is a good practice to indicate numbers. For instance, “5 ways in which the arts help combat depression”. What can the reader expect? Five ways to solve a problem. What is the takeaway? Specific tips for dealing with depression.
Keyword-rich
While you shouldn’t stuff keywords in your headline, you can try to use the primary keyword at least once. This will help search engines recognize the relevance of your content to a person’s search query.
Interesting
Your headline should do justice to your story. Don’t let a potential visitor miss out on a great article just because the headline was too dry. For instance, the headline mentioned above is intriguing because several people struggle with depression and they would surely like to know how a fun and fulfilling activity like art can help them deal with it.
Honest
Avoid sensationalism or using clickbait words like “What happens next will blow your mind”. People don’t fall for it anymore and will be put off by it even if your content is great.
Step 3: Always focus on value
Now that you have managed to bring a person to your blog, you have to keep your promise of great content by keeping them engaged every step of the way.
You need to keep these tips in mind when you are creating your posts:
Write a great intro
People will decide whether they want to continue reading your post by what you have to say in the first few sentences. You need to write a solid introduction that sets the tone for the rest of the post. You also need to use your best language, throw in some intriguing facts and summarize what’s to follow.
Provide a quick table
This is especially important for long-form stories. A person may only be interested in some parts of your content. Therefore, you can make it easy for them to get to it by providing a clickable table of contents.
Provide actionable solutions
You need to use your expertise to provide real, practical solutions that have the potential of educating your audience and even making their lives better. The idea is to use what you know to help those who don’t know it.
Use stories
You need to substantiate your solutions with real-life stories and examples so that people relate to them. Moreover, who doesn’t love a good anecdote? It adds a bit of freshness and soul to what can be a distant piece of content.
Be accurate
Misleading your audience with inaccurate content is bad enough, but what’s even worse is getting called out on it. You need to ensure that everything you say is factually correct and link back to trusted sources so that people know where you’re getting your information from.
Step 4: Add variety with visuals
As great as long-form articles are from the SEO perspective, you need to ensure that there’s something for every sort of content consumer. Some people prefer traditional 3,000-5,000 word articles while others like short and sweet listicles. Some find pictures appealing while many would rather just watch a video.
Having variety not only ensures that you are catering to everyone but also keeps your content more alive and vibrant. Moreover, they help you explain better and allow people to put things into context.
For instance, a video of how to use a product helps people see it in action. A graph representing the statistics you are quoting allows people to gauge the real impact of what you’re saying. A picture of the outfit you are talking about in a fashion post helps people imagine what they would look like in it. An infographic summarizing your article can work wonders as a visual aid.
When picking visual elements for your blog posts:
● Ensure that they are of the highest quality. There is no excuse for using grainy, low-resolution, or blurred pictures or videos, especially when most phones are capable of taking professional-quality shots.
● Try to use your own content. There are two drawbacks of using stock photos or footage. First, there’s no guarantee that other websites are not using the same ones. Second, they can come across as inauthentic.
● Try to come up with a style that represents your brand and your voice in terms of the look and feel of your visuals. This helps make your branding more consistent and builds recognition.
Step 5: Keep it up to date
Once you publish an article, you cannot forget about it. It takes time and effort to craft quality content. It’s not fair to all the hard work you put in if people visit the post for a few days and then it just sits there on your blog with no traffic.
You need to find ways to keep your posts ranking high on the SERPs by keeping your content updated and in line with the trends. You need to evaluate your posts once a month and see what can be done to keep your content fresh and relevant. This not only ensures that your posts keep attracting traffic but it is also a smart way to refurbish old content while saving time and money.
When doing a freshness check, here are a few things you should look out for:
● Remove outdated points and replace them with ones that are currently more relevant. For instance, if you want to republish a post on marketing strategies for 2018 in 2021, there will definitely be things that were trending then that are obsolete now.
● Replace old facts and statistics with newer ones. Ideally, the studies you reference should not date back more than two years.
● Check all the links in your articles to ensure that those pages still exist or that the links aren’t broken.
● Replace pictures, videos, and other graphics to give your post a new, fresher look.
Conclusion
Blogging takes time, and it’s important that you stay patient and not get frustrated if you don’t get it right immediately. After all, there is no point in publishing half-baked content. You need to take time to develop your content style, find your voice, and showcase it the right way.
You can start by publishing one post every two weeks instead of once a week. Having said that, whatever you put out there, you need to ensure that it’s your best.
