flasSo what exactly is a blog? A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group that is written in an informal or conversational style. It’s a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It enables one share their thoughts with other readers to promote oneself or business.
A high-quality blog is a website that’s tuned into its audience to increase the audience and grow loyal readers. Readership is engaged and simply transient and sharing are allowed.
To create a high-quality blog, the following steps are necessary;
1. Research Your Topic
Picking a topic and writing about it never works and will never work. To make your content worthwhile and appreciated, you should have good knowledge regarding your subject matter. This is where you need to carry out research. You can research your blog content using any of the following platforms;
- Wikipedia- when you want to get basic information and the data statistics of a subject matter, then Wikipedia should be your best friend.
- Google scholar- are you looking to write on topics that require references from research papers, thesis, and articles, Google scholar should be your point of reference.
- Google books- citing quotes and references is one way to maintain the confidence of your readers and Google books have lots of these.
2. Write A Headline
The headline of your blog post should cast a spell to your readers in that they simply can’t resist reading the content. On average people have an attention span of about 8 seconds. Regardless of how intriguing you post could be, nobody will find the time to read it if they aren’t convinced that it is deserving of their precious time. Even if your content is so rich of information nobody will ever know if the headline sends them to boredom.
In a similar fashion, if your headline fails to meet its promise, be sure that your readers will be offended and the trust they have in your site will not be the same. So it is important to realize the power of your headline!
3. Transform Your Researched Data to A Well- Formatted Blog Post
You most certainly do not want to scare away your readers with raw data. In as much researched data is valuable, it is not really needed in its original form. If you think you can’t handle it – use the writing services such as a Flash Essay. To get your content to that level you want it to attain, check out these tips:
- You can start with a positive hope, a fact or even an intriguing question. This is one sure way to have the concentration of your readers until the very end.
- Avoid concentrating yourself to the only one-dimensional reader.
- Use keywords. This will lead traffic to your blog from search engines. Having keywords that are less than three or four words makes it broad to attract a single reader base. Once you consider using long tail keywords, this means you have to compete with at least ten times less other sites and you have to target visitors who could be converted to potential clients.
Long tail keywords make your blog post to be unique as many people won’t select them due to fewer searches. As
previously mentioned, you can use them to bring in loads of traffic. There are several online tools that can help you find high converting keywords that rank easily.
4. Internal Linking
As you internally link your blog post, you add value to the linked articles and also make your content more relatable through incorporating related articles which your readers can refer to while reading the blog post. The number of links to be added in a post will depend on the length of the blog post. You could as well edit the older posts and add links to recent articles as internal links because this will aid in quick indexing of new articles.
5. On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
On-page SEO is all about optimizing images for search spiders, internal linking, including related keywords, etc. As much as a post should appeal to the target readers, it should also appeal to the search platforms so as to rank them high for your readers to access them. On-page SEO is important as it informs the search spiders what your content entails. A high-quality article is one that is SEO optimized. Do not fear to link to powerful sites as this step will make your blog content trustworthy as well as more relevant.
6. Have Scannable Content
Ever wondered why books are so easy to understand? This is because they come with an index page. In a similar way, the contents of your blog post should be scan- able. Some readers may not have the time to go through all of your posts. For this reason, it is important that you provide a road map. Subtitles and bulleted points come in handy at such a juncture. Subtitles tell your readers what the entire content is all about. They should be outstanding and have the ability to the paragraph they are describing.
7. Call to Action
Ever seen a car without an engine? That is how a post without a call to action is like. It should leave your readers with an intention of doing something that they have obtained from the blog.
8. Turn Existing Customer into Readers
Current customers can be an excellent source of quality readers for a new publication. Often, they already identify with the target demographic and they’re already familiar with you. The happy potential customers will turn out to be readers and reach other readers through social media.
9. Skip The Misleading Traffic Boosting Techniques
Page view-racking slideshows and catch yet- misleading headlines are common places in the blogosphere; many publications use them to increase traffic and therefore advertising revenue. Unfortunately, however, these techniques often don’t result in quality readership growth.
10. Speak to A Very Specific Audience
Casting a wider net can be good for generating traffic, but with a glut of reading options on the web, passionate blog followers hyper-specific publication. That’s one of the reasons many niche media sites are growing while mainstream publication bleed readers.
11. Guest Post and Use Guest Bloggers
Allowing guest bloggers to post on your blog brings two-fold benefits: more content for your blog and new reader exposure for your site. Guest bloggers often point their own followers to posts that they have written for your publication.
12. Encourage Loyalty Through Consistency
Giving readers something to expect helps them work your blog into their daily or weekly routine. As your audience grows, you should increase your content frequency and have a consistent schedule which helps to build loyalty.
13. Be Timely and Relevant
Aim at blogging to connect with what’s currently on your readers’ minds. This way you will not be interrupting them, instead, you will be enhancing their routines. Give them stories that are easy to click and share to be able to create value.
Anything can make it be quality content. The main aim should be to provide valuable information to your target audience. As we have discovered, you must ensure that your blog post content is presented in a safe manner to all search engine platforms. Follow the above steps and you will have an easy time blogging.
Malia Keirsey is an enthusiastic blogger from Chicago. She is eager to become a professional writer and web designer. Malia shares her experience by means articles related to different areas. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.