Planning your article writing is very much a necessity when you’re busy. Service always comes first and article research gets pushed back, so you grab an idea without first thinking if it will have an impact or attract your audience. But how do you write catchy posts?
The first step is to do keyword research and audience research. The first focusses on getting viewers who are searching for this niche answer online. The second part is finding out what ideal readers, hungry for your message and content, are really after.
Some tools or techniques for audience research:
- Google Trends. Put in 2-3 topics of interest and compare popularity.
- Google. Input ”Your industry” News, and then see “most read” articles in a known media source, e.g. news.com.au. You might need to go to the business section.
- Facebook Groups. Check the industry topics you subscribe to and ask a question or poll a specific set of choices you could write the answer to.
When you find a really good post that engaged others on LinkedIn or Facebook, then that’s a sign to re-purpose that content for a guest post, a podcast talk, or an informal video to post to your social accounts.
Here are some creation tips you can use when writing your blog posts:
- Create Emotion by sharing some more personal stories. Most shared content on Instagram and Pinterest involves pictures that invoked a emotional reaction, but if you’re more of a word wizard, then why not tell a moving anecdote to start the post with.
- Relevance. Tell them straightaway why this is going to be useful in their lives. Is this an easier option, a cheaper solution, a time-saving tool?
- A Catchy Title. A good headline sells the content, and this is important in social media, where there is a sea of blog posts to read. ‘How to’ posts and videos are perennially popular. Sometimes the intrigue of ’10 things you shouldn’t do when………..’ will get them clicking.
- Optimise it Naturally. Be specific and relevant with your keywords, while also conversing naturally with your readers. A good helper with SEO is a WordPress Plugin called Yoast. Joomla also has SEO extensions.
- Teach. Finding a statistic or little known fact is a great way of supporting your blog post with evidence. ‘Did you know…’ ‘Forrester Research found…’ ‘Several obesity studies argued that….’
- Images are proven to be more impactful. People want to share joyful, funny, spirited, and bright pictures. ShoutmeLoud suggests that it helps your social share-ability to use a SEO tool (Yoast) for this. Images also help to break up long paragraphs and encapsulate a concept or tutorial topic easily. Try Canva, a user-friendly platform with templates created for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest. It has options to add text to your image. Canva can help you find a $1 image for your blog which is then not copyright by someone else.
- Call To Action. Many business writers are worried they will lose readers if they try to sell in their articles. However, you can easily add a byline with your credentials, post to social media using the correct hashtags for the topic, and every second post add a quick, intriguing call to action. You will want to guide them to the next step, e.g. invite to your free download, create interest in your book, or “learn more about xxxx here at …..” These types of invitations increase the engagement on your blog every time, just try it and see.
Finally, please use Google Analytics or any good analytics program to track your visitor’s viewing patterns, favoured blog posts, and keywords they used to find it. Webmaster Tools can let you know what traffic you are missing out on by a hair’s breadth, so you can tweak your posts to suit the keywords used in searches around your topic area.
Did you know that people who share useful articles on their social media get a warm fuzzy feeling? Keep in touch.
