Be passionate in your writing. A passionate writer is one whose writing engages the reader in the first few sentences. Whilst an actor or speaker can engage their audience through tone, eye contact and body language, writers must influence through their choice of words. People respond to emotion. Aim at creating an emotional connection with your reader.
Understanding Your Audience is very essential while writing a blog. Define your ideal target audience prior to writing. Do your research in advance, look at your competitors, create a customer persona, get to know your clients personally, monitor reader comments and engagements, witness external social habits and conduct surveys to get insight.
Compelling Headlines can make all the difference. Over the years, the function of the headline has evolved. In the days of print, it served the purpose of catching the eye. Then along came Google. With the shift towards search-based discovery, the headline also had to take keywords into consideration. Use interesting adjectives like, ‘6 essential tips’ is somehow better than just ‘6 tips’, in the same way that surprising facts are generally better than just facts. Use interesting adjectives to add emotions into your headline writing.
Headlines build curiosity. Curiosity is incredibly powerful. It’s the force that leads you to binge watch an exciting show when you’d only planned on watching one or stay up the whole night to finish a good intriguing book. Leverage the power of curiosity to connect with and keep prospects engaged.
Use fewer words for the caption. Each word has a stronger impact when fewer words are used – it makes the speaker seem stronger, saves time, and improves clarity. Headlines should be clear and specific, telling the reader what the story is about, and be interesting enough to draw them into reading the article.
Teach people something useful in your blog. If you care about helping your readers, spreading a message, and making an impact with your words, then you must “teach with your blog”. Chances are that you end up with loyal readers. Explain the idea in a way that invites readers to try it out for themselves.
Create an outline prior to writing. Don’t sit down to write a blog post without creating a framework. The outline will be your guide and make it much easier to keep the flow of your blog post moving forward. Scattered information exhausts the audience and makes them loose their interest.
Use your blog to answer questions. Your readers have questions. Use a specific question as the title of your blog post. The answer to the question is your blog post content. Answering questions is probably the easiest way to communicate with your audience.
When writing your blog post, don’t stop writing until you’re 100 percent finished. I don’t believe in “writer’s block.” However, I do believe in “writer’s procrastination.” This was my biggest mistake. Get your blog post on paper, no matter how ugly it looks. Once you’re finished, go back and edit. Do NOT edit while you are writing it. It will slow you down and interrupt your flow. Use Grammarly AFTER you’ve got your blog post on paper.
Don’t forget about bullet points, numbers, and pictures in your blog post. Make each blog post easy on the eyes. The human brain processes visual content a lot faster than text-based content. That’s why adding captivating images can help boost your engagement.
Write five hundred words, minimum. Fifteen hundred words is ideal. I realize fifteen hundred words may seem like an impossible task when you first start writing, but I promise it’s not. Give it a try!
Write as if you’re speaking to ONE reader. Don’t write to an audience. Act is if you’re talking to ONE person and write accordingly.
Be honest, humble, and personable. Nobody likes a know-it-all. The more personality you can show in a blog post, the better. You’re not writing for your college English professor. You’re writing for the amusement of the reader. That’s a big difference.
Solve problems. People have all kinds of different problems. If your blog post solves a problem, you’ve hit home.
Add a Clear Call-to-Action. In the spirit of saving the best for last, here’s my last tip for writing a blog post that converts - add a clear call-to-action. Whether it’s to ask your readers to leave a comment, share your blog post, follow you on social media, or purchase your product, make sure you clearly state what you’d like them to do. If your content is stellar, most readers will be thrilled to share it. And if your product is awesome, most people will be happy to buy it. But in order to get them to do either, you need to ask! Additionally, you must make your CTA stand out to make sure the audience doesn’t skip it.
And that’s it! Your blog post is ready. Happy blogging!
By,
Neeta Bahrani