You’re new to blogging and you want to know how to how to write a good blog post so you engage with readers and grow your traffic?
Writing a blog is a skill! On the other hand it is fabulously rewarding. In this article I’m going to help you become a Blogging Goddess. I’ll show you how to write better posts, so your tribe remains engaged and wants to share your post. Once you have their love, they’ll begin to trust you and what you have to offer.
Follow my advice to create relevant content for your readers and the search engines.
Reasons To Write Engaging Blog Posts
- build your tribe of fans
- increase your shares
- attract traffic to your site
- build a healthy email list
- grow your sales
how to write an Engaging blog post
If people arrive at your blog and love what they read, they may return. This will help your google rankings (see my article on SEO).
As content providers our goal is to attract readers, get our content shared and build brand.
Attracting traffic to your site is your first step in your brand building adventure. It gets you noticed.
Your second objective is to keep them on your blog for as long as possible. Again this helps you in the search engine rankings.
One way of doing this is to write engaging blog posts and include content to keep them on site.
Thirdly, imagine if you can convert those readers to email subscribers! You’re going to have a huge potential client pipeline!
So how do you become a blogging goddess?
How do you create content that stands out, that people love and demand more from you?
Apply these golden rules to all your blog posts and you’ll be well on the way to becoming a blogging success!
First let’s look at what makes outstanding content…
What Makes Your Content Outstanding?
For me there are 3 key ingredients to writing a blog with fabulous and engaging content:
- 1It must be well written
- 2It must be unique
- 3It must be written for your audience
Let’s looks at this in more detail.
3 Ingredients for an engaging blog post
It must be well written
It must be unique
It must Be Written for your audience
It Must Be Well Written
It kind of goes without saying right that a good story is a well written story right? It’s the same when you’re writing your blog post, or any other piece of marketing content for that matter. You want to keep your reader on your blog for as long as possible. This builds trust.
Think about why you enjoy a good story and this will help you to write a top drawer piece of content.
Give It An Attention grabbing Title
Attention grabbing titles are one of the secrets to getting people to your blog. Use google and Pinterest to test your headlines and see what comes up. Check out each blog and see which ones are popular.
Here are some more tools and tricks for creating an attention grabbing headline:
- Keep it short and simple – e.g How to overcome X to get Y; The Ultimate Blueprint for X
- State the benefits NOT the features! (boy I used to get this SO wrong!)
- Share news that your audience will care about
For more tips, on how to write a sensational headline, read this.
Give It Structure
A good article has a beginning, middle and end. In the blogging world this translates to:
- an introduction (the beginning)
- the answer to the solutions (the middle)
- A conclusion / key take away / call to action (the end)
The second element is to write your article using the what – why – how structure.
It’s simple to follow. Begin the introduction with what you’re writing about and follow with the why your writing the post. Giving your reader a reason to read will help your engagement levels. Then use the body of the content to explain the how.
Make It Flow
Your content needs to flow. As well as your beginning, middle and end it’s must make sense, so it’s a good idea to map out your structure first.
Intro
Like all good articles, begin your blog with an attention grabbing intro. Tell your reader why they need to read it. What is it going to give them. Tease them with an incentive to read until the end.
Body
Make the body of your post easy & interesting to read.
Break it up with headings, images, icons, lists and statement boxes.
Call To Action
Place a call to action (CTA) or an opt in at the end of your post, to get people on your email list!
Make the opt in related to your post.
It’s Got To Have Good Grammar
It’s must have good grammar. This is non negotiable. If you struggle with spelling and grammar, switch on your spell check and get a friend to read it. Alternatively, read it several times (with tea breaks in between each read) before publishing.
Always Begin With An Introduction
Write an introduction to tell the reader how they’ll benefit. It’s so important to capture their attention, so they want to read more. Use story telling and suspense to provoke them into reading more. After all, you want people to stay on your blog for as long as possible.
Keep the Attention Throughout!
Headings and subheadings allow you to structure the article so it’s easier to read. People tend to scan articles for information and headings help you do this. Headings are attention grabbing. It also helps to break up a large body of text which can make your post look busy.
Use H2 and H3 headings to give your reader bite size snippets of text which is easier to consume. They will love you for it.
Make The post Pop with Images!
- Break up text with images. Research shows that people are more willing to read articles with images versus those without. The reason – it’s easier to read!.
- When selecting your images, ensure they’re no bigger than necessary because you don’t want hem to slow the loading of your pages – which will certainly cause people to leave. Use an online image optimiser like Optimizilla to reduce your images without compromising on quality.
- Use illustrations, photos, screenshots and even GIFs (don’t go crazy with these as they can have the opposite effect). Try to use PNGs as they’ll have a transparent background and have more visual appeal.
- Add captions to your images – these capture the reader’s attention.
Use Highlight Boxes
- I’ve used a few HIGHLIGHT BOXES to drive home a statement and catch the eye of my reader. It really helps the reader take the key message away from the article.
- Thrive Architect and Divi Theme have this feature as do most other themes..
Add Interest With Icons
- Icons to break up the copy, making it easier to read and visually appealing.
- They’re really useful for directing the eye to a call to action.
It Must Be Unique To You
Make your post personal to you. Express you views and inject your personality.
The secret is to…BE YOURSELF!
When I began blogging for the first time, I found it hard to write as myself. Coming from a corporate background I still wrote as though I was writing for senior directors. Keep practising and allow your own style to flow. You’ll get there!
Invest In A Front End Editing Tool (time saving!)
Are there any tools to help you to write a good blog post? For sure!
Writing your blog post in the WordPress editor doesn’t look professional in my opinion. That’s because the formatting options are very limited. Therefore, your content is going to look very bland (sorry) and not very well differentiated.
But don’t worry, if you opt for a premium theme, most these days come with a front end “drag and drop” editor, allowing you to create your own beautiful content.
- Writing with a front end editor such as Thrive Architect or Divi Theme means you write in the front end, so you see what the readers sees as you create your posts, PLUS you benefit from a range of formatting options to make your post visually interesting as well as easier to read
- Use your own style and branding, to create a unique and interesting article.
- My blog is created using Thrive Architect on the Divi theme, so that gives you an example of what’s possible. Life before Thrive and Divi was, well, very dull and grey!
- If you’re concerned about the cost, it’s the price of a new pair of shoes or a couple of takeaways AND, if you’re serious about your biz, you have to invest. It’s only $50! Yes $50 so do check out both Thrive Architect and/or Divi Theme. Or, indeed any other!
- Add a video to introduce your post. You can host it on You Tube to drive traffic to your blog, helping viewers find you easily.
Write for your audience
One of the biggest ways to your reader’s heart, is to talk directly to them, yes you!
You must to start with your reader and put them at the heart of your story. if you want to write a good blog post. Remember they’ve come to you to find the solution to their problem.
Ask your peeps what they’re struggling with if you need to. There are many ways to discover what keeps your peeps awake a night.
Ways of asking….
- join facebook groups where your people hang out and see what they’re talking about.
- ask your peeps!
- send out a short questionnaire ask friends in your target niche
- check to see what the most popular questions are by using Google and Pinterest
- use Keywords everywhere to see the top ranking searches and keywords for your topic.
- Use Buzzumo to find the most popular blog posts and tweets in your niche.
When I’m writing, I like to pretend that I’m writing to my friend. It helps with the flow. When you speak, your conversations flow right? So, if you find you get stuck or are overcome with writer’s block, then imagine you’re telling your friend the answer to the question.
When you write, check that you’re still on topic and get to the point quickly. I bet you lead a busy life, just like me and would love to learn, process and move on.
You’ll be etched on their memory when you demonstrate how well you solve their problems!
Now that you know how to write a good blog post….get my checklist below!
Download The Blogging Checklist
- Make your posts shareable – this means ensuring you’ve got easy to find social sharing icons / buttons on your site, just like the ones to the left side of my page.
- Add a shareable / interesting / profound “Click to Tweet” statement, like the one below. This makes it easier for the reader to share your post in a condensed, bitesize format. This feature is available with Thrive Architect.
- Don’t forget to include a compelling call to action (CTA) such as, “please share this with someone you think will find it useful’ and or add a content upgrade (opt in related to the post such as a checklist). So please, do share this post with any of your lovely peeps, if you feel it will help them too!
- Always, ask your readers to leave a comment – this helps build your authority.
4. Write for The Search Engines!
A good blog writes for the search engines, so they can be found in searches.
Pepper your content with keywords so that the post is indexed and ranked highly in searches.
I have a detailed training on how you do this in Social Media Circle, but essentially, you need to integrate keywords into your content without “stuffing” them in.
If want to be one of the popular blogs out there, you have to be good at blogging!
Don’t fall into the trap of keyword stuffing. This is when you’re dropping in unrelated or too many duplicate key words in an attempt to get listed by the search engines. The search engine algorithms are intuitive and intelligent. They know when someone is cheating!
I’ve included a good selection of keywords that I’ve found related to the topic of this article and I’ve also included some related search terms.
CONCLUSION
My three key takeaways to writing an engaging blog post are:-
1. Write for your audience (address their pain points).
2. Make it easy to read.
3. Write for your audience but consider the search engines.
Still have question? Send me your comments below and I’ll get right back to you!
Thanks for stopping by x
Hi Jay,
Great article! This blog post is the perfect example of how a well written article can profit from using a visual editor such as Thrive Architect to make it stand out 🙂
Thanks Hanne! You inspired me to write it and improve my articles! 🙂 Ladies you have to check out Thrive Architect! It will transform your blogging power!