What's your reason for blogging? Is it to pursue a passion, to hone your writing skills, or to earn money? Whatever your intention is, you would want a site that people visit often. One of the ways to make it more appealing is to have great content.
Here are tips to help you fill your site with blogs that online users will want to read:
1. Make Use of Suitable Technology
First off, you need the virtual space to write your blog on. If you're aiming for a site that looks professional, get a proper domain name instead of a free one offered by blogging companies. But before you can make a WordPress website, you need to look for a hosting service to make the site accessible.
After you have the site set up, you can then add other tools and plugins like spam filters and contact forms.
You can write anything you want, but the question you should be asking is: who am I writing for? Your blog should be about the people who read it, not about you.
There is no right or wrong topic, but content that readers love is one that:
- Informs
- Solves a problem
- Responds to a question
What you contribute should be unique and engaging. Out of the millions of blogs online, yours has to be interesting enough to stand out.
Finding a topic is not that difficult. There are several online tools that you can use. A blog idea generator, for instance, lets you input three words about a subject and returns a list of suggested titles for your content.
Another tool gives you a good idea of what questions people are asking online. To be more specific about your topic, you can dig deeper and check which of the questions got the most views and reactions.
3. Choose Headlines that Catch Attention
Content may be the part that should be read, but it's the title that catches attention. It's also what users see when they do an online search. A catchy title should go hand in hand with well-written content.
If you judge books by their covers, then you should judge blogs by their headlines. To emphasize the importance of a title, think of it as the one avenue through which you entice people to click and read what you wrote. With the title, readers should be able to tell what the content is about and decide whether or not it applies to them.
Keep these suggestions in mind when creating blog titles:- People are perpetually searching the internet for ways to properly do all kinds of stuff; thus, starting a main heading with "how to" has more chances of getting clicks. Other words that arouse curiosity are "why" and "what."
- Headlines that start with numbers are appealing to readers because they are direct and indicate substance. They are best used in list titles such as, "3 Ways to Groom Your Dog."
- Keep it short and unique. If possible, it should be no more than 55 characters long since this is the maximum limit Google allows for displaying titles.
- Use power words that evoke an emotional response from your readers. There are hundreds of these that you can incorporate into your titles.
4. Write Engaging Content
What you should have in mind when writing for your blog is that people are more likely to accept advice from someone who is confident. Since your readers can't see you physically, this confidence must be evident in the way you write. So how do you convey this quality?
1. Through your writing style.
Engage your readers more with a conversational tone. Talk directly to them by making use of "you" often. Other strategies you can employ include:
- Asking questions. When you converse with friends and family, you do ask questions. You can do the same in your blogs.
- Writing in plain, simple English. Highfalutin words are not impressive at all. People won't be interested in reading a post they find difficult to understand.
- Making sentences short. Cramming more than twenty words in a single sentence makes it less readable and the information more difficult to absorb.
- Varying rhythm. Mix things up in your writing, like alternating long and short sentences and strategically positioning punctuation marks.
2. Through your site's design.
If your site represented you, the design would be the clothes you wear. It's what your readers see first. Before they even look at the content, they could already form an impression of you based on your page's appearance. You can be creative in designing your site, but don't let it get too complicated that it becomes distracting.
People find it easier to connect with a person they know. Although your connection with your readers is limited in the virtual world, you can make it closer to reality by putting your photo on your blog. Add an About Me page containing a description of yourself. These will make you more relatable.
You can do many things with blogging. It can be a channel that enables you to reach people all over the world, and you can use it to promote a business or yourself. Now that you know how to write blogs like a pro, you can begin carving your own niche in the virtual world.
