When you start to write a blog, there will be tons of topics you surely are eager to talk about. But before you begin to queue your posts, remember that there are essential elements that you must include to engage readers, increase your social shares, and drive conversions.
Here are 9 things you must include in your blog posts:
A Captivating Title
Writing a compelling title is the first step to attracting more viewers to your posts. The decision to read your article begins with your title. It’s what motivates people to click a link and read your posts, so it’s always worth taking a few extra minutes to find the perfect title.
The title should make the reader think “I need to learn more about this subject”. That’s why it’s known that blog posts tend to include the words “how-to” or a number, such as “5 ways to…” The reason why these posts perform well is that they promise readers will learn something specific when they check out the post.
Also, remember to always try to include your keyword in your title. This will help you to rank higher on Google and therefore more and more people will read your posts. But remember, you’re not writing for Google, you’re writing for your audience.
A Summary
This is not a mandatory thing to do, but most of the time a well-crafted summary will convince those hesitating people to read more about the post. This will be the last they need to check out your article, and that’s just the beginning.
You can check out our blog page for an example, also there are more posts there that will help you improve your business as well as yourself so make sure to check them out!
A Powerful Start
The most important part of your blog is the beginning. This is where you show your readers that you understand exactly what they are facing and have the perfect solution for it.
The first lines of your article must engage with your audience so they continue to read the post. The most common and useful starters are telling a personal story so that readers can relate, asking a question that will later be answered inside the posts, sharing interesting statistics, or showing readers that you understand their biggest challenges.
Whether to be direct or not at the beginning of your post is up to you, you only have to find the way that your audiences like the most.
Sub-headers
You might have lots of things to say, but you have to be careful with the way you say it. Let us break it down to you: No one likes too wordy articles.
You have to make your article easy to read and easy to skim to increase engagement.
Most people skim articles on the Internet, rather than read them word for word. Adding subheaders or any kind of divider will make your article easier to read because it’ll divide it into sections. It will give it a hierarchy.
When you come across articles that are too wordy the reader will often feel demotivated to read them since most of the time they are looking for a quick and specific answer to a problem. So be sure to break up your text using sub-headers, bullet points, numbered lists, and short paragraphs.
Call to Actions
Give your post a purpose by having a clear call to action. Think about what you want your audience to do after they finish reading your post. Leave comments. Share your post. Visit another web page. Don’t let your post end in just that small part of the information, you’ve got the readers’ attention so make sure to properly use it and give them a clear CTA at the end of your blog post.
Images
Using the right images will give huge benefits to your posts. Images not only make your page more visually appealing, but they can also improve your engagement and social sharing, SEO, and will give your blog that personal mark your business needs to further increase the presence of your brand.
An Author’s Bio
An author’s bio with a picture will show readers that you are not just another faceless corporation. Giving the authorship credit to your team members will help you to further boost their motivation, build morale, and ultimately get more colleagues interested in contributing to the blog. It will also show that you, as a business, care about your employees and that you are not another faceless organization, and that will say wonders about your brand.
Categories and Tags
Make your posts easier to find by adding them inside categories. When someone’s looking for a post inside your blog it’d be easier for them to engage if they can search articles in the category that interest them the most.
Don’t forget to assign a proper keyword to these categories or tags so that you can narrow down all your articles inside five or fewer core topics. Then, you can use tags to get more descriptive. Adding too many categories is a common mistake and you should always try to avoid that.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is what every website or blog needs to be found on the internet.
If you want to know the basics of SEO we highly recommend you to read our SEO 101. There we’ll give you a strong foundation of what SEO is and the strategies you can use to implement it efficiently.
These are all the things that you must include in your blog posts. Our final recommendation for you is that once you’ve finished learning the basics of SEO, you should then move forward and read our 5 reasons why your website needs SEO so that you can know more about all the benefits SEO will bring to your blog as well as your website!
See more articles by Ender Cárdenas
