As a marketer, blog promotion is one of your main success components. This is why a well-thought-out content marketing strategy is key to bringing your business to the next level and establishing yourself as a leader in your niche.
All highly-ranked blogs are built using content marketing (publishing content that can sell). And if you are a serious business maverick, you won’t miss the chance to popularize your products or services by posting engaging blog articles that support them. For instance, HubSpot provides profound marketing statistics proving that marketers who have a blog and post regularly are 13 times more likely to get a higher ROI and boost traffic.
Sure, you can just post blog articles without taking into account their content, length, value, or educating and marketing power. Or, you can work out a perfect plan and start making money! It’s up to you! If the second option sounds better to you, good! Just scroll down!
You want to get into Google’s top 10 search results, right? Well, then you need a bulletproof strategy that will attract the right target audience, build brand awareness, convert leads and bring you to the top Google SERP.
#1 Killer-Strategy for Your Blog
If your blog hasn’t gone viral – it wasn’t planned well enough. Impact-producing content should be developed beforehand. This is why it is crucial to understand the inner workings of great blog posts.
Memorable Headline. The headline of an article is literally the first thing users pay attention to. Don’t try to be too smart or sophisticated because it will bore your target reader. Convince everyone to click and read to the very end.
Engaging Images. Choose logical or even weird visuals for your blog article, as long as they evoke a feeling. Your images should generate true and sincere emotions. Moreover, they break up long sections of text and add colour and character to your posts.
Introduction. This is where you tell your reader why your blog post is worth his/her time. Make your intro catchy and intriguing enough to encourage visitors to keep reading.
Parenthesis. Give a prelude to your piece before moving right into your main topic. For example, if your blog post consists of lists, tips, hacks or pieces of advice, tell your reader several words about them all before diving into each. This method will give your article structure and make it easy-to-understand.
Main points. The body of your article is the most valuable part. It is like a good on a shelf. Use all of your writing skills to perfect it and people will share, comment, subscribe, follow, tweet, retweet or even buy. Make them love your style. This will be easy if you don’t do it for Google, but do it for your readers.
Conclusion. Sum up your article by finishing your flow of consciousness. Try to give readers “food for thought”. Don’t just leave them with “that’s it”. If you want users to subscribe, keep their attention even after your article is over.
Feedback. If your blog post is current and you raise vital points, people will want to discuss it; so give them the opportunity. The more comments you receive, the more traffic you’ll get. Also, of course, answer every comment and show that you care about your readers’ opinions.
Sharing buttons. Social sharing buttons can be placed anywhere: left/right sidebar, top/header or bottom. We recommend placing them on the left/right sidebar to encourage users to share while they read, or at the bottom of your article to encourage them to share after they’ve finished reading.
#2 On-Page SEO Performance Is Your Key to Increased Revenue
What would you prefer to click on – a paid search result or an organic result? More likely an organic result, yes? Search Engine Journal research concluded that 70 – 80% of users skip paid results, choosing organic ones instead. Professionally done on-page SEO will help bring your website to the first organic search result, which gets approximately 33% of all clicks.
On-page SEO is crucial because it helps your blog pages rank high on search results and get lots of traffic from different search engines. But to reach this result, you need to properly lay out your page, structure your content and optimize all elements.
Once again, remember this simple rule: Google has a user-first approach. That being said, if your website and your blog content are user-oriented, Google will rank you higher. Easy.
What you need to consider when optimizing your blog pages:
- information architecture
- visual design
- interaction design
- UI (user interface)
- functionality
- typography
- usability
Find out more about on-page SEO if you don’t yet feel confident, but remember, user experience is primary.
#3 Keyword Planner – A Winner’s Manner
Using properly structured keywords is vital for blog pages. Imagine your blog is about scholarships in the United States. You want it to rank higher than competitors’ sites and blogs (and there are a lot of them). Get ready to learn how long-tail keywords can help optimize your pages.
Visit Google AdWords Keywords Planner, enter your main keyword(s) into the search field (for example, “scholarships in the United States”) and receive your list of keyword variations. You will receive keyword ideas by reference, average monthly searches and competition level (low, high).
After you have found desired matching keywords, insert them into several headlines and choose the best one.
- How to Match Student Standards: Get Scholarships in the United States in 3 Steps
- Obtaining Scholarships in the United States: Dream or Reality?
- Top 25 List of Universities You Need to Apply to Get Scholarships in the United States
Your next step is to optimize your blog post with these keywords. Make sure the following elements are optimized in the right way: URL, title tag, image alt text and page content. But make sure your article isn’t overloaded. Both users and search engines should perceive it naturally.
Remember: If you seek to become a high-end blogger, user experience should be a priority. This is how new SEO is built.
#4 Become the Dan Brown of Content Writing
Best-selling authors have their own tactics for leading devoted readers to keep turning pages. High-ranked bloggers have the same methods. For example, solid introductions.
An introduction is a glimpse into your article that makes your target audience want to read further. You will get more positive feedback if your introduction consists of:
- Brief information about your blog post.
- Proof that your article is worth reading, sharing, liking, re-posting, etc.
- A valuable solution that solves readers’ problems while showing that you care and want to help.
Keep in mind that a dull intro will not work. Inspire your reader to scroll down. How? Here are 2 ways (but there are many more of them).
Question. Question(s) will catch readers’ attention and urge them to find answers. Forget about obvious and transparent questions. Try to elicit discussion, argumentation or debate in your visitors’ comments and reposts. You have a blog to sell something, and people only buy if they are interested and invested.
Statistics. Providing statistics in your introduction shows that you have done your research and can fortify your statements with real data. The Nielsen Norman Group has stated that potential customers read only 18% of blog article text and from 20%-28% of your whole website. So, providing relevant information from the very beginning will increase the chances of your visitors reading to the end.
#5 External Link Building Makes You Trustworthy
If you want to perfect SEO for your blog, link building is what you need. High-quality links will cement your authority in your niche, help your business compete and build customer trust.
Google’s ever-changing algorithms are strict and have become more complicated to fit its guidelines. But Moz’s specialists prove that 20.94% of all ranking factors depend on appropriate links.
To further amplify your link building process, guest blog with well-known bloggers or distribute your content on platforms such as Slideshare, Reel, Projeqt or SlideBoom.
Generating trustworthy links will bring more success to your content marketing campaign. Moreover, if your ideal link building and wholesome blog content work well together, search engines will rank you high and your income will grow.
#6 Blog Post Length Matters
The period from 2012-2017 has significantly changed users’ and bots’ requirements of blog article length. Users in 2012 wanted to read, post and share small pieces of content quickly, and users in 2016 wanted more deeply researched texts. Even 7-minutes-of-reading, 1,700 word articles in 2014 (according to Snap) were not enough in 2015.
This Nielsen Norman Group chart displays the standard time visitors spent on pages (with various word counts):
HubSpot, Serp IQ and Moz bloggers say that 2,000+ word articles gain the best performance and active feedback while getting more real customers and boosting traffic.
Let’s look over several methods that will increase your number of visitors and their time spent on your web pages:
- Involve big ideas, relevant topics, and up-to-date, hot news.
- Prove that your readers should really continue reading.
- Show that you care about what you write and that all your topics are truly personal.
- Share your experience, stories and events that are close to your given theme.
- Combine your blog post with related posts or ideas. By making your text more substantial, you will target a more mature audience.
- Ask questions and intrigue your reader (we’ve already mentioned this).
#7 Any Good Examples of SEO-friendly Articles?
Both Google and users consider some articles better than others. Why? Because of reputation, structure, content value, high-quality SEO, SMM and PPC strategies. So, if you want your blog pages to look like the New York Times, Forbes or Wikipedia, follow their lead.
Let’s look at an example of a smartly structured Wikipedia article: “Star Wars Land”.
You probably won’t find anything similar in value and informativeness. User considers this page to be the one and only of its kind so Google ranks it higher (1st place, to be exact).
After reading it you will agree that it is comprehensive, while giving lots of examples, links and proven facts. In terms of its SEO, the page topic is mentioned in the URL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Land), title tag (Star Wars Land – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), the page heading (“Star Wars Land”) and the alt text of every page image.
Keep in mind all of these leading blog strategies and innovate using your own content marketing and search engine optimization. This will help put your business on the map very quickly.
Conclusion
Having decided to optimize your blog pages, remember that you are doing so for your target audience. Understanding this fact will lead your business to increased sales. Solve users’ pains and problems and they will be ready to buy your product/services. And what about Google? They only need to be sure that you follow their guidelines and work on behalf of your users. Create influential blog posts and build honest SEO – this is it!