Blogging is a great way to produce quality content to keep your audience engaged, to help boost your website’s SEO, and grow your brand. It’s undoubtedly one of the most powerful website tools you can have in your arsenal.
Many companies resist blogging because they are nervous about maintaining one, don’t feel they have the time or manpower, or don’t know where to start. For a lot of companies, it’s a combination of these factors.
For other companies, they’ve been blogging but aren’t seeing the results they want from it. Maybe you’ve heard about how great they are but can’t execute them how you’d like.
No matter which side of the blogging line you fall on, today’s post is for you. We’ll be digging into what makes a successful blog and how you can implement it yourself.
Strong Titles Are Key
Right off the bat, people won’t engage with boring or useless content. Therefore, it’s important to hook them with the title of your post, so you’re more likely to draw them to the post itself. We aren’t talking about creating clickbait; no one likes that. What we’re talking about is a title that actually catches people’s eye.
“Creating Great Blog Titles” versus “4 Tips You Need to Create Captivating Blog Titles Today”
Which one sounds better? Which one makes you want to click on it? The second one! It promises you that you’ll be able to create better titles, use descriptive words, and offer it all in 4 simple, digestible tips.
People love a good “how-to” article, a list article, or something that promises them something. They want to know what they’re getting into before committing their time and energy to a post. Creating a strong title is half the job of getting them there.
Well Written Content
In the world of blogging, both quality and quantity are important. If you had to choose one, though, quality should win out. It’s essential that the content you create is relevant, engaging, and timely.
There’s absolutely no point in pushing out useless or uninteresting content because it will show Google that no one is interested in what you’re putting out there. Since SEO is measured in part by bounce rate and how many users visit a particular page, you want the posts you have to count.
Well-written content should be relevant to your audience. For example, if you’re a baker, sharing tips for clothing shopping isn’t useful to your audience. Instead, you could share recipes, teach people baking tools, and give them tips for decorating their home when hosting meals. While the content doesn’t always have to be about baking, it should be close enough to the topic that your audience can still benefit from it.
Grammar and spelling count too. People appreciate blog posts that aren’t riddled with errors. So make sure always to proofread your work and employ tools like Grammarly to help you catch those you wouldn’t normally.
Use Headers
A header is basically a title for each section of a blog. An example is “Use Headers” above. It shows readers and search engines the breakdown of content and what the post is all about. Headings also define which parts of your content are important and show how they’re interconnected.
It’s key to use them so that as Google is indexing your website, it can take the most important pieces into account. For readers, it makes the post more digestible. Stringing a lot of content together can make a post feel longer and make people not want to read it.
Headers also help guide your readers, so they know what’s next, or even so they can skim the content and determine if they want to read the entire post.
Place Keywords Wisely
Keywords are another way SEO is measured. They show Google what your post is about and help them categorize it for searches. Back in the day, you could put them in a post without a care, and it didn’t have to fit in naturally or make sense. Now, things have changed.
Google now prioritizes content that sounds natural and well suited for what people are searching for. As a result, you can’t place keywords throughout a post that don’t make sense. Instead, you need to make sure it blends well with your content.
Choosing the right keywords is also important. Think of what your ideal customer is typing into Google when searching for you, research what your competitors are doing, and use keyword research tools. All 3 of these are great ways to decide which keywords you will use.
Use the Right Alt Tags
Alt tags are an alternate description for images within your post. They help with a few things: first, they offer a description so visually impaired people can read it rather than make out an image. Second, they appear online when an image hasn’t been loaded yet. Third, they signal search engines like Google what an image features to help them index it appropriately.
An alt tag should be sufficiently descriptive but not contain any spammy attempts at keyword stuffing. If you can close your eyes, have someone read the alt text to you, and imagine a reasonably accurate version of the image, you’re heading in the right direction.
It would be best if you focused on keeping your alt descriptions relatively short, descriptive, and focused on your keywords.
Don’t Forget Your Meta Description
A meta description is a small blurb that appears underneath your website on search engines that includes information about your page. It is designed to provide users with a summary of the content on your page so that users know if the page will answer their questions.
You must create a meta description for each blog post that makes people want to read it. Think of it as an opportunity to expand on your title and give people a chance to get excited about your post.
Your meta description should also feature your keywords. This is important because it shows search engines that your post is really about those keywords. It also echos this to readers and helps boost your SEO juice on that particular post.
If you’re a WordPress user, the best tool to help you create this is Yoast SEO. It will tell you if your meta description is the right length, has your keywords in it, and more.
As you write your next blog post, take each of these topics into account. Then, you’ll be able to go into it confidently, knowing that you have all the right puzzle pieces! They will also help you create a successful blog that produces the best results time and time again.