Congratulations on your new website! Getting online is one of the first steps to actually growing your business! But… now what? You have a website, but nobody is coming to look at it? Well, your website isn’t an Ark. Just because you built it, doesn’t mean people care or will come and look at it How do we solve that? How do we get readers and customers alike to come and look at your website? Content. Good, solid, helpful, informative content.
The content of your website can show your readers that you know what you’re talking about. Moreover, it can show that you are an expert in your field. Better still, is content that answers your readers’ questions. In this brief article I will outline some tips that I use when creating content for my own site. I hope these tips will help you fill your new, or old, website with meaningful, search engine-friendly content.
Pick a topic
This may seem like the most obvious tip of all, but it’s actually quite significant. I’ve found myself writing up an article only to be about halfway through and realizing that I’ve jumped topics half a dozen times. Stay on topic. Your readers aren’t looking at your post for your opinions on a loosely related topic; your readers are reading your article to answer their questions.
Now, this isn’t to say your loosely related topic isn’t useful. In fact, I would recommend taking that parallel article idea and making a whole new article! Then, in your original post, mention it briefly and link to it. Linking from article to article inside of your website is great both from a user perspective and for search engines.
Think of your headlines
Writing a long blog post is difficult. Thinking of a topic, then writing 5 or so good subheadings for that topic is easy. I find that if I try to just sit down with the goal of writing a blog post, I can very quickly get stuck with writer's block after the first paragraph. By choosing my headlines first, I essentially just write 5 very small blog posts that all answer different parts of the same question. This little trick has saved me time and time again from the dreaded writer's block.
Just a quick example of this. This article was written in about 45 minutes. I started by thinking of the idea of the blog post. I then wrote the second paragraph and 5 subheaders. From there, I filled out each section a bit more then went back to the top to write a better introduction. I’m not claiming that this article is the best article online by any means… but if you’re reading this, then it must be working so far, right?
Choosing these headlines will both help you write an article quickly, and will give your readers a way to skim your article at their leisure.
Answer your reader's question
Answer. The. Question. This cannot be overstated. You’ve picked a topic, you wrote your headlines, and now answer the question. This is more important today than ever as Google continues to update its algorithm. Gone are the days of just using a lot of keywords you think Google will care about. Now Google cares about whether or not your content is being perceived as helpful, and informative, and answers the question people are actually looking for.
Some quick examples here. Do not write an article that says “When Will Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 Come Out”, and then spin up an 800-word article about how you like Gunn’s movies and can’t wait for it to come out, but really we don’t know when it will come out and it’s all just speculation based on previous movies. Google won’t like that. Instead, consider an article where there are facts to be presented.
Don’t forget the images
Imagery is so important. Think about the last time you went to a website and read a whole blog post that didn’t have some good photos to keep your eyes moving down the page. Don’t forget the photos. If you must, you can always use stock photography from a royalty-free website such as Pixabay.
I’ve written an article that goes into more detail on stock photography and how to save it for the web. Take a look at that here.
In Conclusion
Writing a blog post takes time. Writing one that people actually care about means answering their questions; this takes significantly more time. I hope this article helped you and, more than anything, answered your question on how to write a blog post that people actually care about!
Is content writing not your thing? Hire us! It’s not really our thing either, to be honest. We build websites. But we would love to help get you moving in the right direction!
