It was
all about how to make your blog post more user and search engine friendly so as
to leverage search engine optimization. And today I’m going to feature 15
blogging tips to make you a better blogger. Whether you’re a beginner or a
professional wouldn’t matter, these tips will supercharge your next blog post. Guaranteed!
Blogging Tips to Enhance Your Next Blog Post
It’s all About
Quality, Not Quantity!
Make Your Blog
Posts Scannable
Write Today
Monetize
Tomorrow!
Word Count
Matters, Be Consistent
You Don’t Have To
Stuff Synonyms Of Keywords
Use Social
Sharing Buttons
Speed Up Your
Blog
Split Your Blog
Posts
Make Your Blog
Personal
Publish At The
Right Time
Update Your
Evergreen Content Regularly
How To Write A
Blog Post Faster
Write More
Evergreen Content
Write What People
Want
1. It’s all About Quality,
Not Quantity!
Always focus on quality and not quantity.
Don’t write a blog post every single day just because you think you want to
publish one. Write only when you’ve got something to share with others. Increasing
your blog post counts may increase your traffic, your revenue, and your
backlinks but if they’re of low quality then it’s going to hurt your
credibility. For example, nowadays both Mashable and TechCrunch are “making”
news rather than “reporting” them.
2. Make Your Blog Posts
Scannable
I’ve already mentioned in my How to Write A Perfectly
Optimized Blog Post in my
formal Ebook about how to use
sub-headings and bullet points in your blog posts to make it more user
friendly. The idea is to make your blog posts more scannable because people
don’t read your blog posts word by word they scan it. So use lists (numbered
lists or bullet points), sub-headings, block quotes, and format the paragraphs
by effectively utilizing text formatting like – bold, italics, underline,
strikethroughs, or even colors.
3. Write Today, Monetize
Tomorrow!
If you’re getting steady traffic then you can
monetize it anytime. There’s a way to monetize your blog no matter what your
blogging niche is. You can sell advertising, try
affiliate programs (Tip:
What is affiliate marketing?), brand yourself and offer your services,
etc. when you’re ready.
Anyone & Everyone To Make Money | Minterest
4. Word Count Matters
An analysis by serpIQ
suggests that the average word count of a web page that ranks top 10 in Google
has 2,000 words. But it’s all about quality too so it doesn’t really mean that
your blog post will be on top 10 if it has 2,000 words. For example, if you’re
writing a Top 100 list post then you’re giving a lot of value in the first 10
points while you’re supposed to offer value in all your 100 points. Don’t just
write to increase your word count.
5. Be Consistent
Yes, it’s all about quality but if you’re
able to publish blog posts consistently then your traffic will also grow
consistently over time. It’s important if you consider yourself as a
professional/full-time blogger. For example, if you own a recipe blog then it’s
a good idea to think about a publishing frequency. Like – a new blog post every
day, a new blog post every Monday, or a new blog post every Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday. That way you’re keeping your blog active and your readers engaged
so that they will subscribe to your RSS, Facebook Page, Twitter to get the
future recipes.
But if you check my blog then you’ll see that
I don’t have any blogging schedule (read
my editorial philosophy) and I’m not consistent at all. Since I treat my blog
as a personal journal I write when I’ve got something to share about things
that I’m passionate about. It
could be tech, marketing, or even smashups and
that exactly is the reason why I don’t accept any guest posts
or press releases.
6. You Don’t Have To Stuff
Synonyms of Keywords
In 2000s it was easy to rank a webpage for a
keyword by adding the primary keywords in title, h1-h3 tags, paragraphs, meta
description and keywords. Since Google sucked at understanding synonyms we had to
stuff synonyms of the keywords in the title, description and content. Now
Google understands synonyms (see
LSI – Latent Semantic
Indexing) so you don’t have
to spoil the title by stuffing keywords.
For example,
If you Google “best iphone apps” OR “top 10
iphone apps” the #1 result remains the same.
7. Use Social Sharing
Buttons
Make sure that you’ve integrated social media
sharing buttons in your blog post so that it becomes easy for your readers to
spread the love. If you’re using WordPress then you can try the plugins like Shareaholic,
Sociable, DiggDigg, Pinterest Pin It
Button for Images depending upon your target audience.
8. Speed Up Your Blog
As you may already know Google has incorporated
site speed as a ranking signal in their algorithms. So if your blog
takes more than say 3 seconds to load (Tip:
You can use the tools listed here to check the speed
& performance of your blog) then
you should improve your site speed to improve your rankings on search engines.
Here are 15 tips to speed up your website.
9. Split Your Blog Posts
blog post if it’s too lengthy to improve the user experience. But it doesn’t
mean that you should split it if it’s over say 2,000 or 3,000 words. You can
splitup the article if you’ve covered two different topics in it. For example,
let say this tutorial was actually part of my previous blog post “Blogging Tips to Enhance Your Next
Blog Post but when I started I got a
feeling that it’s worth to write as another article. So I split the content and
made it two posts: one focusing optimization and the other one on tips. There
are additional benefits if you split posts like it helps to reduce the bounce
rate of your blog, will increase page views, and more page views means more
advertising revenue. Optionally you can indicate paginated content
to make it more search engine friendly.
10. Make Your Blog Personal
You’re writing a blog post and not a book so
you’ve to make it personal by adding emotions. It’s a good idea to use “I”
often as it builds trust. It’s absolutely fine even if you’re going to disagree
with someone or if you’re genuinely writing about how you are feeling about
something/someone. After all you simply can’t please each and everyone who is
out there.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already
taken.” – Oscar Wilde
And always respond to your comments and
e-mails. I try to reply to as many e-mails and comments as possible. The only
situation when I don’t respond to an e-mail is when I’m sure that they used a
pre-written template.
11. Publish At The Right
Time
Social media timing really matters. Just
submit the same piece of content at different times and you’ll notice that
you’re getting more traffic whenever you post during peak times. People usually
read blogs in the morning but you can also check the statistics by publishing
at different times and find the best timing.
12. Update Your Evergreen
Content Regularly
You must update your blog posts (especially
your evergreen content) whenever you can. It not only keeps your blog posts
fresh and up-to-date but will also improve your search engine ranking. For
example, whenever I come across good WordPress Plugins, or Apps, or Internet
Tools, etc. I add them to Evernote so that when I have collected enough new
information related to a blog post I update that post.
13. How To Write A Blog
Post Faster
I take at least 4 to 6 hours to write a 1,000
word blog post depending upon the topic but professional bloggers and
freelancer writers are super fast. I’ve asked few bloggers on Twitter few
months back and they told me that they can write an in-depth blog post that’s
2,000 word article in less than 2 hours.
Also, read by Ginny Soskey of HubSpot. She’s
a staff writer at HubSpot and has listed 11 tips to write a blog post every
single day. There are some cool ideas in that blog post but my favorites are
“Skip to Easier Stuff” and “Organize Your Bookmark Bar With Resources You Use
Every Day” as I follow that. I add the links required for the next blog post to
Google Chrome’s Bookmarks Bar and it will be my starting point.
14. Write More Evergreen
Content
There are over 52 types of blog posts
that are proven to work like tutorials, news, lists, comparison, stories,
memes, etc. Evergreen content refers to those timeless blog posts that remains
valid at all times of the year. For example, when you write a news story about
a trending topic then it’s more likely that your blog post will become out of
interest when that topic is no longer trending. When you write evergreen
content you will get traffic to those articles consistently as people search
about it even if the topic/keyword is not trending. But make sure that the
content is up-to-date because it’s almost impossible to write an article that
requires zero maintenance since you have to offer as much value as you can.
15. Write What People Want
If you’re not sure about what to write then
the best way is to analyze your traffic (Tip:
Google Analytics is your friend).
Because that’s the easiest way to find out what’s working and what’s not. For
example, you can check the Analytics to find the most popular pages in your
blog or you can check which blog posts are getting the maximum social media
love so that you can repeat the steps. And yeah, use keyword research
to further optimize those pages so as to maximize organic traffic.
BONUS: Topic Ideas For Your
Next Blog Post
I previously wrote that the secret to
daily blogging is to start writing a blog post. Likewise, read, read,
read and you’ll never run out of topic. You can read this blog post
where I have featured over 25 great tools to discover awesome content to share
and blog about.
If you don’t have time to read, you don’t
have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King
If you want to blog something random then you
can try the Content Idea Generator Tool by Portent.com. You
can enter any keyword that you like and it will suggest a social media friendly
title. So if you’re really creative then you can use that as a starting point.
Trust me, it works! Or If you still didn’t get any content ideas then take a
look at your competitors and see what they are blogging. For example, if you
own a technology blog then your competitor may have reviewed an interesting
app. You can try that app too and write your review and feel free to give the
credits.
