3 Ways to Make Your Blog Content Great
Are you aware that 71%* of people say that they make purchasing decisions from blog research?
Did you know that business to consumer companies get 88%* more leads a month if they blog?
The research is clear. Having a blog benefits your company, however, as a business how do you make your company’s blog content GREAT? At R & R Web Design LLC, we recommend at least 3 posts a week on your blog and ideally 5 posts. The reason we recommend so many articles is simple. The more you blog, the more likely your customers will find you.
3-5 postings a week for any business is going to take effort. Today, we are going to be sharing with you a few ways that have allowed us to create great content without taking too much time or effort.
What is Great Content?
First let’s take some time to define what we are trying to reach, which is great content. According to Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner, the goal of your blog should be to create a following and good content will help you to do that.
- Easy To Read
Most blog readers are skimmers. Yes, I admit it, I am a skimmer too. Our eyes focus in on the bolded words. We like short paragraphs and we love images. Make sure your audience can skim your article and walk away knowing what you are saying. - Keep It Relevant
Know your audience. This is a spot that is easy to run into some trouble. Just because I think something is interesting does not mean you do. Our content needs to appeal to our audience. - Educational
This is our “How to Do Something Stellar”. When you are looking into how to something, what do you type into Google or other search engines? You type, How to Do Something Stellar. Using how to or step-by-step instructions are a great way to start a following.
One way to know that you have achieved great content is when other bloggers and readers are sharing your content. So let’s make it easy on our readers by embedding social media sharing. We do this at the bottom of all our posts by using share and enjoy!
How do you create great content? Which articles do you see get shared more, how to, step-by-step, breaking news?
* Statistics based on a survey conducted by Hubspot
While simple steps, they are consistently followed by many blogs. Presentation (easy to read) might be the most important.
Steve, thanks for commenting. I completely agree. I would also say the way simple steps are presented allow you to achieve the easy to read factor.
I really like what you said about “Easy to Read”. Brevity and readability is a lost art. Actually I am wondering how brief this comment is going to be.
I think tactics such as blogging for SEO purposes are good tactics at face value, and you certainly get results. However, I know a lot of used car salesmen who have lots of tactics that work too, and get results – but the tactics don’t represent the brand very well. Here is where I get a little purist so bear with me. I got asked a couple of weeks ago – how often should we blog. My answer was “Whenever you have something awesome to say”. I stole that line from Scott Stratten. If you don’t have anything awesome to say on Monday, and it takes 2 weeks to find something awesome to say, that’s okay. Back to brevity – tactics start to feel a little like tactics – brilliant I know. Tactics do not a good marketing strategy make. They may create results short term, but long term talking for the sake of talking will do damage and credibility will be lost.
Look at Facebook – there are a bunch of people that I am sure you have started tuning out. They talk to much – or you wonder if they actually do real work. Tactics that work or not – that’s a dangerous place to be as a business or even worse as a brand.
So, I agree with Michael and you – good presentation, but we have to be careful with the tactics.
Justin, thank you so much for commenting. I think you bring up a great point. If our blog articles do not have great content, we do run the risk of just become more noise on the internet. So our goal becomes how to have great content while blogging 3-5 times a week, so we do not lose out on all that a blog can do for our company. It’s about quality and producing that quality as often as possible. Using tools like keeping your articles easy to read and being relevant to our audiences are how we get that quality. Check out this Monday’s blog for more on why companies should be blogging and continue coming back on Mondays for more tips on blogging.
Hey Christine, well put. Useful content that fills the gap or gives something more unique to the readers will only win. Also it should be readable, easy to scan and be easily digestible.
Jane,
Thanks so much for your comment. I think keeping your blog articles easy to read can separate you from other bloggers like you. 🙂