So you put your sweat and blood to write a blog post. You are so excited about that blog post. But how to write a good blog post that gets noticed today is key to your blogging success.
You’ve done all the editing to polish your post and it reads great! Now you are extremely proud to click that Publish button and you do so.
You look forward to comments, shares, and all sorts of social media interactions. That’s quite reasonable, isn’t it? – given that you’ve spent so much time and effort on it.
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How To Write A Blog Post Your Readers Will Love and Share!
But that doesn’t seem to happen. Why is that? Why are your blog posts avoided by readers, even though you write them with all your heart?
Why do the blog posts of your peers do very well among their audience but yours fail to perform well?
Let’s discuss six tips for you on how to write blog posts that will get your readers to read and share!
1. Choose A Topic That is Interesting And Useful To Your Readers
This boils down to identifying your readers first. If you don’t know to whom you are addressing your blog posts, you won’t be able to make them useful to your readers.
Get to know your readers first. This is a crucial step in blogging – I would say, this is the very first step where you should start.
You could be tempted to write about a topic that you know best. Or a topic on which you are passionate.
But remember people don’t care about what you had for breakfast, or what your interests are (I’m NOT saying that you should totally delete all personal details from your blog though – but, you get the idea).
All your content should be about your readers, even the About page on your website!
Everything should be focused on your readers!
2. Pack Your Blog Post With Ample and Relevant Information
OK, this could be daunting for you. If you wanted to touch on a topic just like that and get away with a 500-word blog post, you must first understand that it won’t work.
Shallow blog posts used to work a while ago. Not anymore.
And, let’s forget about SEO and people for a moment. Would you (just you and you alone) honestly accept that such a shallow post will give anything useful to your readers?
You bet.
Now both from the perspective of search engines as well as people, blog posts with ample information rock.
At the same time, I don’t want you to mistake quality for the number of words on a blog post. You can deliver quality information and usefulness in as many words as needed.
This depends on your way of writing, and there is no strict rule. Let’s consider an example.
Neil Patel is well known for writing long, in-depth content with lots of screenshots, illustrations, quotes, etc. People LOVE his posts and they get lots of shares and comments!
Here’s a topic, where Neil directly addresses the “need” of his target audience!
And look at the number of shares on this post.
So, find your writing style and use as many words and images, screenshots – whatever – to get your point across.
Make sure your post has elements of interest and usefulness! If you write a mere theory, no matter how powerful it is, people won’t be able to directly relate.
Rather you should include examples, practical tips, and other additional resources so people can actually take value from your blog post!
3. Format Your Blog Post So It Is Easy On The Eyes
The internet is both an interesting and a boring place! You stumble upon awesome content from time to time. You also stumble upon crappy content meanwhile.
Apart from quality and the meat, what separates awesome content from crappy content is the formatting.
Remember I said, “the internet is a boring place”? Yes, people get bored. Some are highly impatient. Many are in a hurry. And most of them are multitasking.
Even if you write a very long, in-depth blog post, only 40% of your readers will read it (according to Neil).
And that 40% of your audience will read only 28% of the words on your blog page!
In short, people don’t read web pages word by word. They scan through, for whatever reason. And when they get to the interesting bits, they stop for a moment to read that part alone.
And also most people don’t read your blog posts till the end. They don’t finish it.
Tips on how to write a blog post that stands out:
- Use headings.
- Use bullet points (like this one).
- Use images/screenshots.
- Leave ample white space.
- Break down the paragraphs (people don’t like to see big blocks of text).
Make your blog post easy for scanning. Period.
4. Include Elements Of A Variety
Just in relation to what I said above, people get easily bored or annoyed and they leave your website for various reasons.
And if you make your content boring this will drive away the “already bored” readers.
Instead of having all text in your blog post, you could include a variety so people don’t get bored.
How Can You Include Variety?
Images are great ways to do that. Other than that you could include videos, audio, downloadable pdfs, etc.
You should also be including tweetable, quotes, and the like!
Include practical tips and examples in your blog post so people don’t just read all about the theory.
You can listen to Lisa’s latest Anchor podcast here.
5. Write Reader-Friendly Blog Posts
We’ve talked about formatting and adding variety. But there’s still something that’s left out. That’s reader-friendliness.
Not from the point of view of how easy it is to scan or read the post along, but in terms of how it sounds.
Does your blog post sound as if it is from a salesperson? A PRO of a big company? A piece from a freelance writer who has no idea about your business?
Or does it sound like YOU who really empathizes with them (your readers)?
This is what your readers prefer.
Here’s a checklist by Marya at GetResponse blog to make your blog posts sound friendly. The points I liked the most are:
- Talk less about yourself (makes your post interesting and empathizing)
- Write in an active voice (so people can relate)
- Break the rules of grammar (so you don’t sound too formal)
- Get rid of jargon and corporate speak (yup)
- Be vulnerable
Things like these make your blog post very reader-friendly.
6. Use Your Own Blog Post Formula
As a blogger, you will be writing blog posts regularly. And you want all your blog posts to be celebrated by your readers, don’t you? Knowing how to write a blog post that is celebrated by your readers is a great formula to use.
So you need a formula. A pre-written set of instructions that work for you. So you can rinse and repeat the formula to write winning blog posts every time.
I love to do that. It saves a lot of time.
So if I find something – a strategy, or a method – to work, I document it and just rinse and repeat.
Of course, you have to add variety; and you should try out new things. But having a working formula will simply guarantee you success.
Here’s a simple blog post formula to give you a head start!
Will Publishing More Posts Help?
Remember, publishing “more” blog posts won’t necessarily get you the traffic and results you want; because “more” blog posts are not going to do anything useful to your readers unless each blog post is useful by itself.
You need to know how to write a blog post that is appealing for the long haul.
Here’s a case study by CoSchedule where they’ve found that publishing more content won’t necessarily grow your blog traffic.
Or won’t necessarily make your readers interested in reading and sharing the content for that matter.
So merely publishing more blog posts won’t help as long as they are appealing to your readers; incorporating these 6 tips will help you create such a blog post.
It is all about understanding your readers and serving them what they what in a way that pleases them.
Don’t Forget SEO For Your Blog Posts
After all this, there is one thing you need to know is to research your topics before you write that next blog post for SEO. You want your blog posts to be found online.
Use the right keywords and answer the right questions for your content. You will find them by researching and using tools like Ubersuggest and Answer The Public.
Furthermore, you can refer to Google trends to get a better understanding of what people are searching for on the largest search engine.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to write a good blog post, go, get to work, and write those awesome blog posts.
I’d love to know how you go about writing blog posts today in the comments. What you think makes writing a good blog post work the best?