Blogging is an ideal method of sharing expertise, opinions, recent events or the latest news and can help your business grow by attracting more and new traffic. In fact, content creation for blogs has many possibilities and all can help your company seem more engaging, personal and establish a connection with your consumers.
Metropolitan House use has a blog on its website and posts are shared regularly on social media. Content varies and focuses on different aspects of the business. Sharing their blog posts on social media has proven effective and shown an increase in traffic to their website. In fact, posts that link back to their blogs have demonstrated the highest amount of engagement on Facebook in comparison to other blogs.
According to CoSchedule Blog, businesses that write weekly blogs have a 66% increase in customers. However, in order for your content to increase traffic, it must be interesting and written well. Below we highlight some tips to ensure your blog post successfully engages your audience.
A compelling headline:
According to Hubspot, a captivating headline can increase traffic to your website by 500%. In a matter of words, your blog headline needs to grab your audiences’ attention. When sharing your blog post, your headline is going to be the first aspect your audience will see. Therefore, it is imperative your blog post is worded in a way that encourages them to click and read further. To increase the probability that your audience will read further, consider addressing a pain point or value proposition.
Additionally, a direct and informative headline will perform well on Google and help your posts appear higher up the search rankings. Avoid click-bait style headlines that fail to correctly inform your audience of your content due to sensationalism or exaggeration. Despite bringing you more clicks, you’ll likely annoy your audience which will have negative effects on your traffic long-term.
Sub-headlines:
Sub-headlines allow you to effectively break up your content into easy to read sections. Large sections of text can be off-putting for your audience and cause your bounce rate to increase. Breaking up your text can encourage your audience to quickly see sections of your article which interested them and understand your subject matter quicker. A large amount of your audience will scan your page before deciding whether to read the article, sub-headlines provide more clarity which will mean that more people will be interested.
Bullet-points:
Similarly, bullet-points are easily digestible information which allows you to communicate more effectively to your audience. Bullet points are a great way to break down complex information or to include facts and statistics within your post.
Stay-on-point:
With blogging, it can be easy to go on a tangent, especially with more conversational style posts. However, in order to avoid boring your audience, it is important you stay on point and only include relevant information. Throughout the writing process consider your purpose and make sure every sentence relates to it.
Image:
As a general rule, social media posts with an image often receive the highest amount of engagement. Using images on your blog is also worth doing to increase traffic. Your own images are preferred as it creates a more personal connection with your audience, however, stock imagery can be a good alternative and it is sometimes worth paying the small cost in order to increase your following.
Proofread:
Even professional writers and bloggers can make grammatical errors from time to time. However, it is important that your blog is well-written for your credibility no matter your field. Take a break and return to your work with fresh eyes, you’ll more likely spot mistakes that you’d previously not noticed. Grammar checkers such as Grammarly are also great for checking your grammar is correct throughout.
Length:
To rank well in the search engines, blog posts should be at least 300 words according to Yoast. However, longer blog posts mean more time spent on your website, which is good for your search engine rankings. Closer to 1000 words would be ideal, however, not everyone has the time or the writing abilities for this and can potentially be an off put to your audience if they see a large amount of text.