Pretty much everyone who has involvement in the maintenance of website content and the dissemination of company news, views and information now recognises the power of the blog.
The internet in general and blogs in particular have made authors of us all (and secretaries of most of us!).
Having toiled over creating your blog, you want your target audience to read it. Right? (I assume no-one’s answered “no” to that one, so I’ll press on).
Here are just a few simple things to remember to do BEFORE you make it live to help your blog to grab attention, get read and (hopefully) start a dialogue with its readers.
Create an inviting and eyecatching title.
Give your blog a great and effective title; one which encourages click through to read the whole thing.
There is a statistic that says 85% of emails don’t get read beyond the subject line. I can believe that and I’d reckon it might even be higher for blog posts. The title is probably the most important part of the blog. Even if the content is great, your readers might not get that far. By writing a descriptive and engaging title, you should persuade more people to click it and read it.
You should also make sure your blog includes keywords to optimise the blog for search engines. This applies to the title too.
My title includes reference to “blogs”, “help” and “reader numbers”. All of which might be terms used to find blogs on the subject.
Write short paragraphs.
Don’t overface your reader by offering up huge blocks of text. Fewer and fewer of us can be bothered to read lots and lots of copy these days. So, give your information room to breathe by putting it into bitesize sections.
Putting section headers in bold and larger typo size allows readers to scan through a blog quickly and decide what the blog is really about, and if they want to read it in depth.
Read your blog several times.
It sounds dull, doesn’t it? But, you should read through your blog several times to make sure there are no grammatical errors or spelling mistakes (I hope there are none here!).
I like to write a blog and then leave it for a day or two and then revisit and read it as though I’m a member of my prospective audience.
Professional proof readers often read an article backwards because it focuses the eye and the mind onto each word and phrase individually.
All obvious?
Possibly. But do you go through a similar checklist every time you write a blog?
And, to be honest, I’ve left out the most obvious tip – write interesting and engaging content. It’s as easy as that.
I hope this title got your attention. Then, I hope the blog is interesting and engaging, and you read it all the way through, without finding any errors.
Above all, I hope you enjoyed it and feel you learned a little bit.
At BD2, we work closely with clients across the whole marketing spectrum, digital or not. That includes helping with blogs. If you think we should chat, please get in touch.
And, if you have got this far; thanks for your interest.