Recent WordPress Statistics reveal, 53.6 billion posts are produced and published each month. That’s roughly 1.8 billion new posts being published on a daily basis.
That’s a staggering amount of content you have to compete with on a daily basis as a blogger.
So how do you successfully compete with this staggering amount of new content being posted on a daily basis?
The first step is create quality content, consistently. For SEO purposes, creating quality content, consistently, will get you higher site rating with Google and increased growth in your readership. Thus enabling you to compete with your competitors.
I’ve compiled a list of 10 tips to help you create better content for your blog, thus increasing your readership of your posts.
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Write content you are passionate about
Why? When you don’t care to write about a certain topic, your readers won’t care to read about it. Simple as that.
As a blogger, the easiest way to create burnout in yourself, is to create blog content that you yourself are not passionate about.
Tips for writing content you are passionate about:
- Set aside some time to generate a list of your hobbies, talents, interests, skills, abilities, etc. Anything that sparks your interest and gets you excited about life is what you want to focus on here. The point of this exerciser is to generate some topics that you will feel passionate enough to write about.
- As you go about your day to day life, keep a pen and paper or smart-phone handy. Jot down any blog post ideas that come to mind that get you excited.
- If a particular blog post idea elicits an emotional response inside of you, it will elicit an emotional response in others.
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Write with your ideal reader in mind
As a blogger, you may envision masses of people swarming their computers each morning to read your latest posts. So what do you do to attract those masses? You start writing very generic posts so as to appease everyone…and what do you get in return…? Silence.
Frankly, you don’t want to write to appease the masses. After all, you are not a politician, you are a blogger. A blogger with a voice and passion; who needs to determine what their niche is before creating quality content.
To determine you niche as a blogger, you need to first create your ‘ideal reader’.
Create your ideal reader profile by filling in the answers to the following:
- {Your ideal readers} Gender, Age, Location, Income, Job, Education Level, Marital Status, Children?, Ethnicity.
- {Your ideal readers} Interests, Hobbies, Personality, etc.
Refer to your ‘ideal reader profile’ often, and always write with your ideal reader in mind. Writing with your ideal reader in mind will help you create quality content that is tailored towards your target market.
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Use Google Analytics to tailor your posts towards your target audience
Want to know what posts really peek your target market’s interest? Look no further than Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a web analytic service provided by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.
Google Analytics shows the following statistics:
- How many people are coming to your site
- What they are doing(viewing) when they are there
- How long they stay on your site
Use the information you get from Google Analytics to generate posts that peek your target audiences attention.
If you notice that your exercise posts generate a lot of attention, but your favorite dessert posts are receiving the sound of crickets, take this information and generate posts tailored to your target audiences preference. You’ll grow your readership if you learn to tailor towards your audiences preferences.
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Take time to create quality vs quantity
As a blogger, creating content on a consistent basis is key to developing a successful readership. However, when you become more consumed and focused on creating a certain quantity of posts each week, your quality may start to suffer.
If you are a new blogger, it’s a good idea to start out with 1-2 quality blog posts each week. Slowly increase your number of posts each week as you are better able to get in a good routine that still allows you to generate the quality your readers deserve.
What makes quality content?
- Is the content tailored towards your target audience?
- Does the title entice your readers?
- Does your intro paragraph pull your readers in?
- Is there substance to the body of your post?
- Did you include a quality photo(not a must, but elicits a good response to your post)?
- Did you include a call to action?
The items listed above are all crucial elements to generating quality content.
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Write to ignite an emotion
Blog posts that generate the largest response are those that ignite an emotional response in it’s readers.
Main emotions include:
- Surprise
- Fear
- Joy
- Sadness
- Anger
- Disgust
While fear, anger, and disgust ignite an emotional response from readers, studies have found that igniting a positive emotional response generates a far greater outcome for your post.
While writing your content, always aim to elicit an emotional response from your readers.
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Call your readers to action
Before you hit publish on your newest article there is one more crucial element you need to include….
Call your readers to action! Every blog post you put out into the world needs to include one call to action.
Call to actions include:
- Invite readers to comment
- Invite readers to subscribe to your feed
- Invite readers to follow your social media accounts
- Invite your readers to come back tomorrow
- Invite your readers to share you content
Why are call to actions so important to your posts? Simply put, call to actions convert ‘visitors’ on your site to ‘followers’.
Your goal as a blogger is to create a steady following of readers. Creating call to actions on each post converts those site visitors to followers.
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Create scannable content
A huge problem with a lot of blog posts is that they are too long, which is overwhelming for viewers to take in.
What generally happens when a site visitor views a long blog post? They leave the page, quickly!
Creating scannable content for your readers keeps them engaged and from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of content they are taking in.
How to create scannable content:
- Include headers & sub-headers to break up main points.
- Include lists.
- Formatting: bold, italicize, and underline text.
- Use pictures and white space to break up text
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Entice readers with effective headlines
I’m sure we have all heard again and again as bloggers to spend sufficient time generating the perfect title. Well I’m going to have to reiterate this point.
An effective headline can mean the difference between being a dud or going viral. Neil Patel tells us that 8 out of 10 people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 people will read the article. This staggering statistic shows us how vital effective titles are to your article being a success or failure.
So how do you generate effective headlines that your readers won’t be able to pass up? First, realize that learning to write effective titles for your articles takes time and practice.
To help you get started, follow these tips for writing effective headlines:
- Keep your headline to 6 words or less.
Research has shown that a 6 word headline is the perfect length for headlines. As most people scan headlines and pick up on the first three and last three words of headlines, a 6 word headline is perfect.
- Keep your headline brief and specific.
Too often bloggers try to come up with a clever headline that doesn’t really describe what the post is about. Keeping your headline specific and to the point will catch more readers eye’s than a headline that they aren’t able to make sense of.
- Use a keyword or phrase in your headline.
For SEO purposes it is a great idea to use a keyword or phrase in your headline that you use throughout the body of your article.
Examples of great article headlines:
- ‘How-to’ articles
- ‘List’ articles
- ‘Tutorial’ articles
- ‘Tips & Tricks’ articles
- ‘Secrets’ articles
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Include/Create quality images
Just as an effective headline is vital to your article’s success, so is including a quality image in your article.
3M Corporation and Zabisco have found that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. So while your writing may be impeccable, it has a far greater chance of being read, if a quality image is included along side it.
Tools for creating/editing images:
- Canva
- Piktochart – great for creating info-graphics
- Cheezburger – great for creating meme’s
- QuotesCover – great for creating images with quotes
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Time publishing of your post correctly
I’m not sure about you, but my best writing hours are in the early morning hours. I know a lot of bloggers who do their best hour of writing late at night.
So when should you push ‘publish’ on your latest post? Is it right after you have put those last finishing touches on it? If it’s at 1 AM, probably not.
According to several studies the best time to publish your post is:
- Monday
- Mornings, between 7-11 AM
Conclusion
Focus on creating quality content for your site by following my 10 tips, listed above. Watch your readership grow as you take the time to generate quality content that is tailored towards your target audience.
What tips do you have for creating quality content? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.
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