Blog writing doesn’t come naturally to everyone and many small business owners struggle with creating quality, converting content on a regular basis. To help, I’ve broken down a few essential things that a successful business blog article needs.
Blogs come in all shapes and sizes, including ones I call “puke drafts” (like stream-of-consciousness blog writing where you just get your ideas written down without any thought to grammar, spelling, or organization). If you’re writing blog articles for your business, then that style probably won’t be beneficial for your biz.
Here’s the top 5 things you need in every blog post for it to be successful:
1. A catchy or concise title
It’s the first thing people read and if it doesn’t give them a reason to click through to read further, your blog post has failed before it began! When blog writing, I personally try to avoid clickbaitey titles. I believe that the blog writer should be honest and speak to a problem the reader is having or provide valuable information the reader can benefit from.
2. SEO it baby!
Even the most well-written, unique, and logical blog post will never reach its’ goal if no one knows it exists! Do some keyword research and include a keyword phrase throughout your article (in meta titles and description, heading 1, heading 2, as the alternate text on images, and several times throughout the body of your piece). There are WordPress plugins that can help you SEO your article.
3. Be unique
Chances are someone, somewhere has written a blog post or web content about your topic already. So, how can you make your article unique? Perhaps it’s your tone, or how you weave personal anecdotes in, or how it relates to your business or brand. Find something unique and special to help grab and hold the readers’ attention.
4. Sensical structure
There are many ways to organize your post. It could be narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. It could introduce a topic, provide supporting evidence, then summarize. Either way the content should make logical sense to the reader so they understand your content the first time. A business blog post should lead the reader on a journey, virtually hand holding their hand and guiding them to your ultimate goal or outcome.
Which brings me to my fifth and final point…
5. Have a clear, relevant call-to-action
Why take the time, effort, and money to publish a blog for your business anyway? Ultimately, you’ll want to sell a product or service or somehow convert the reader into your client or customer. The best way to do this is to keep them engaged with you as long as possible. The longer they stay engaged, the more they learn about you, the more they trust you, and the higher your chances of making a sale.
Now that your end goal is clear, how do you nurture leads? Through a chain of relevant calls-to-action (CTAs) at the end of each blog article. Your call to actions could be anything from inviting them to follow your social media channels, subscribe to your newsletter, downloading a free resources or a link to another related article or page on your website.
Your CTA should make sense with the content. It should help further educate the reader on your article topic, provide a way to contact you if they want more information, or directing them on how or where to buy. Make sure that each blog post has a clear, relevant CTA at the end (if your smooth, you could possibly fit 2 in), and/or link to other pages throughout your post. However you do it, make it sound natural.
Now, if I obey my own rules here, according to rule #2, I need to summarize everything for you now…
Once you’ve written a catchy title and used keywords in your content, find a unique angle or perspective and clearly organize your content, ending with a strong CTA. Then you’ll be well on your way to a blog post that converts.
Note: In no way do I guarantee your blog will be successful if you follow all five rules above. These are just some of the basic building blocks of a successful blog post You need to be blog writing content that people give a shit about and you need it to be well-written, preferably by a professional writer or marketing professional.
Which brings me to the CTA (rule #5) of this post…
If you’re a busy business owner and the idea of writing a regular blog for your business makes you break out in hives, why not reach out to WriterGal Marketing Services (a.k.a. me) for a hand.
