Tips for Writing a Successful Blog Post

Are you struggling with creating engaging content for your company blog? Or do you want to start a blog but you do not know where or how to start? Blogging is an easy and inexpensive way to enhance your Marketing efforts, drive traffic to your site, and attract more customers. But for your blog to be successful you need to create content that your readers will want to read. The content you create for your blog matters in an infinite number of ways, from search engine optimization to the quality of your content and more. A successful blog needs to solve problems and answer powerful questions that your audience has or inform and empower them with tools to succeed. So how can you set your blog up for success? Follow the tips below:

Understand Your Target Audience
Before you begin writing a blog post you need to ask yourself this question: Who is your target audience? It is important to have a clear understanding of this so you know what your readers want to know about. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and make sure your blog is interesting, engaging, and well-organized.

Grab Your Audience’s Attention With the Title
Your title needs to tell enough to intrigue potential readers. Your title is important for your readers but also for search engines. Titles should be around 50-60 (max) characters long and include your target keyword phrase for optimal search engine results.

Your Introduction Needs a Hook
Your title needs to intrigue potential readers to click on your blog post, but your introduction needs to hook them immediately. If you lose your reader’s attention in the first few sentences, they will not stick around long enough to make it to the end of your blog. A great way to create a sense of suspense is to ask a question because your audience is more likely to keep reading to find the answer.

Organize Your Main Points
Start with creating an outline to ensure that you cover everything you want in an organized manner. Keep in mind that your audience’s attention span is very short so you need to get right to the point because most of your readers are skimming. Organizing your information is the trick to make sure your readers are not intimidated by the length of your content. This means using section headings, short paragraphs, bullets, and other formatting elements in your posts.

Looks Do Matter
Make sure you choose a visually appealing image that is relevant to your post. Images will help to expand on your main points and are now more responsible for the success of your blog on social media. Also, choose an easy to read font for your post and make sure your text is large enough so it is easy to view on any screen size. Images are not all that make a post visually appealing – your formatting and organization of your post play an important role in this too. This will help make your content and brand look more professional and it will be easier on your reader’s eyes.

Have a Call-to-Action
At the end of your blog post, you should incorporate a call-to-action that tells your reader what you want them to do next. Your call-to-action can ask your readers to subscribe to your blog, link to another blog post, and so on. Overall, make sure your call-to-action is relevant to your blog topic.

Proof Read, Proof Read, Proof Read
Don’t overlook this step – it is one of the most important parts of blogging. There is nothing worse than blindly publishing something that has a ton of grammatical errors. If you are able to, write your posts a day or two in advance and read over them with fresh eyes right before you are ready to publish.

Remember creating content for your blog is only the beginning, it is important to promote your blog too if you want it to get the attention it deserves. We also mentioned in our blog last week that the holiday season is quickly upon us and you don’t want to be stuck realizing you never prepared a promotion for it. As things get busy and the holidays get closer, writing content for your blog will be the last thing on your mind. You may think that planning your blog is going to take a ton of time. However, if you follow our tips, prepare, and write your blog posts ahead of time you can ensure the success of your blog and marketing efforts. If you are a vendor with BMT Micro and you still have questions, we may be able to help. We now offer Marketing services, so please feel free to contact our Marketing Specialists via email at leah@bmtmicro.com for more information.