We’re well aware of the astronomical growth in the popularity of blogs in today’s society – in fact, it seems that everyone and their dog has a company blog nowadays.
The problem with such an abundance of blogs is that they tend to get repetitive or sound like adverts.
Producing post after post according to a strict timetable and providing an excessive amount of irrelevant information is not the best approach.
We found and listed some tips from Business2Community on how to avoid falling into this trap:
1. Grab their attention immediately
Every writer knows that coming up with a good headline for a story is more than half the battle. “Good” in marketing terminology means “catchy,” so you should really concentrate on creating an eye-catching title. Keep in mind that people tend to only read a headline whilst browsing, so if you lose them at the very beginning, there’s no turning back. Try to keep a title straight to the point or make it obvious what the post addresses. A popular trick is to combine numbers with a strong statement.
2. Tell a good story
Now that you’ve got visitors to open and read your story, make sure you don’t lose your readers half way through. A good writer knows how to come across as likeable and get people engaged. Try to tell stories and entertain readers along the way, so they come back looking for more of the same. Ending with a cliffhanger – as used by TV writers to great effect – is a neat trick for ensuring consumers return.
3. Make it useful
Keep in mind, however, that your information must be of practical importance to readers and potential customers or they’ll be unlikely to read it at all. Try to look for questions they may have about your industry and any related problems that may need solving. Provide useful information first and then make a subtle plug about what you sell at the end.
4. Search engines want you, too
However, people aren’t the only visitors to your site and you will also have to write for search engines – your other most important audience. You should keep search engines in mind when writing and include article keywords a few times, along with synonyms and related terms. This way your article has a better chance of appearing at the top of search results pages due to its overall relevance to the topic.
5. If you can’t be new, be different
You should also prevent your articles from becoming stale. How many new industry-related stories are there really? How many times can you afford to retell the same story? Retelling old stories is possible if you do it using a different format. For example, if you’ve written a blog post about an issue, don’t write another one on the same topic – make a video instead. Or an infographic, or a podcast. Different formats relate to different people: try to please them all.
6. Keep your standards high
Needless to say, everything you produce has to be of the highest quality before any of these tips can be applied. Also, you have to make sure it is consistently good; pushing yourself to meet a certain standard – preferably the highest standard possible – will get visitors’ attention. Once you have this, converting them into customers will be much easier.
Liked that? You might like these, too:-
• How Content Marketing Can Reach All Types Of Customer
• Companies Embrace Content Marketing: 91% Plan To Produce More In 2014
• Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid