8 Tips For Drafting A Successful Blog Post
Are you struggling to write engaging blog posts that rank well in search engine results? In this post, we'll provide you with eight rules for writing successful blog posts that both captivate your audience and improve your website’s SEO (search engine optimisation). From choosing your subject to optimising your images, we'll cover all the essential steps for crafting a blog post that will help your website stand out from the crowd.
Step 1. Choose your subject
When choosing a subject for your blog post, start by conducting keyword research to identify what terms people are searching for in your industry. Look for topics that align with your brand and expertise, and that will provide value to your target audience. Choose a specific angle or focus for your post, and aim to provide a unique perspective or solution to a common problem.
Step 2. Write a headline
When writing a headline for your blog post, it's important to include the keyword you've chosen and lead with benefits for the reader. The headline should be between 20-70 characters and 10-13 words. Your headline should be descriptive and provide a clear idea of what the post is about, while also being engaging and attention-grabbing.
Step 3. Create a Page Title and Meta Description
Often an afterthought, (or not included at all!), these will appear as a clickable link in search results and should be a more succinct version of your headline. A good meta description tells both the reader and Google what your page is about and offers a compelling reason for searchers to click through to learn more. Use secondary keywords in your meta description and make sure it’s 110 – 140 characters long.
Step 4. Research the topics you’ll cover
Using your chosen subject, research what queries people are searching online in relation to this topic. There are several ways of doing this, including using popular SEO tools such as Answer The Public and Keywords Everywhere, or by simply searching for your topic in Google and looking for similar searches at the bottom of the page. Once you have the topics covered, you’ll want to summarise this in your introduction, explaining the blog post briefly (in around 100 words), touching on the points you'll cover and the information you'll share.
Step 5. Write your blog post based on your outline
Once you have collated five or six of the most common queries around your subject, use them as headers for each paragraph, formatted into H2 or H3 titles. Ensure secondary keywords feature naturally but aren’t stuffed, and include links to other pages on your website, eg., for a website selling sunglasses, when mentioning polarized sunglasses, link to an appropriate collection or page. All links should be titled, and should never be formatted with ‘here’ as the link, eg. ‘Discover all of our polarized sunglasses here.’ Help Google understand where the link goes by linking the relevant words, eg. ‘Discover all of our Polarized Sunglasses.’
Step 6. Include optimised images
It's important to include appropriately named images, with alt-text added. This is essentially describing the image for Google, eg. black polarized sunglasses. Images help break up the text, provide visual interest and can also be used to illustrate a point. Be sure to reduce or optimise the file size of your images if they're too large, so that your page loads quickly.
Step 7. Make it legitimately interesting
Blog posts serve multiple functions, and although beneficial for Google and SEO, they're also sources of information and great pieces of content to share in EDMs and on social. High quality, well-written content will do wonders for your rankings in Google and brand perception, but a blog posts’ primary function should be to inform, educate or entertain your readers and website visitors, so make sure it’s an enjoyable read. This will encourage people to share it naturally, with referrals being one of the best sources of traffic available.
Step 8. Include a call to action
Not essential but always worth including, a call to action (CTA) encourages your readers to take a specific action after reading your post, such as leaving a comment, clicking through to your product pages, or sharing your content on social media. Including a CTA can help increase engagement, sales, and drive even more traffic to your website.
And there you go! 8 tips for improving your website's SEO and creating blog content that resonates with your target audience.
