Over the years, businesses have had to up their game and boost their marketing efforts to keep up with technological advances and consumer demands. That’s why online sellers need to develop a strong web presence to engage their customers and rank on search engines like Google. While creating a website is a key component to this strategy, businesses need to take things a step further to build brand awareness.
That’s where blogging comes in. By providing useful, relevant information regularly, blogging is an affordable way to enhance your marketing efforts, attract prospective buyers, and drive traffic to your AIM member store.
How To Blog Successfully: Create Engaging Content
When it comes to blogging successfully, it’s essential to keep your targeted audience engaged. This will ensure they spend more time on your website and keep them coming back for more. But how do you do this? Let’s take a look at the following ways to create engaging content:
Keep It Fresh
Keep your content fresh and exciting. By providing new and dynamic content that hasn’t been covered by multiple outlets (a million times before), you’ll provide consumers with something special, they look forward to reading.
Tell A Story
Online consumers love a good story. They also love connecting to your content on a personal level. A well-written blog should evoke emotion and connect with your readers.
Use A Personal Yet Professional Tone
A successful blog strikes the perfect balance between personal and professional. Take the time to weave these elements into your content while staying true to the voice of your brand.
Cut Out The Fluff
While it’s important to create lengthy content to attract search engines and boost SEO, consumers don’t want to read 2000 words of fluff. Instead, take the time to weed out any word dribble and break up your content with eye-catching headers, videos, images, and other personal touches that readers love the most.
Research Consumer Interests
It’s important to do your research and study the popular posts your competitors and top influencers are sharing. Note what keywords they are using and the hot topics they are covering. This will help you develop engaging content that people read and share.
Use High-Quality Visuals
Humans are visual creatures. That’s why high-quality visuals are essential to a successful blog. Try incorporating eye-catching photos, videos, and infographics throughout your content. However, you can’t just pick any visual and call it a day. Instead, you need to carefully select images that people connect with, or else they won’t add any value to your marketing efforts.
Write Original Content
Nobody wants to read about something that’s been covered a million times. Even worse, Google hates duplicate content. In fact, they penalize it. Instead, take the time to write original, well-thought-out content.
Include Attention-Grabbing Titles
When it comes to writing a successful blog, it’s important to include an attention-grabbing title that entices people to read it. For example, consider the following two blog titles and see which one you’d rather read:
- 10 Successful Writing Tips
- Want To Become A Successful Writer? Here Are 10 Things You Should Know
The first title is boring and lacks an attention-grabbing hook. The second is more engaging, which means people will be more likely to click on it for more information.
Engage In Conversation
If people start commenting on your blog, search engines like Google flag it as important content. This results in the best search result rankings. Even more, people are social creatures, and they love to engage in conversation about what they are most passionate about. That’s why you should always respond and tie what people are saying into future blog posts.
Use An Easy-To-Read Format
If you want your blog to be engaging, it needs to be easy to read. Content that is easy to digest in an easy-to-read format will keep consumers engaged, no matter the length. Below are a few tips:
- Keep paragraphs short. Readers don’t want to navigate lengthy, uninterrupted text.
- Break up content with subheadings. You can use this post as an example.
- Incorporate lists. They are much easier for people to scan and digest.
- Use high-quality visuals like photos, videos, and infographics throughout your content.
- Use commonly used fonts like Arial, Times Roman, or Verdana at 12px or larger.
You can also build engagement by sharing your blogs on your social media pages and making them public. This will allow people to comment and share your post with others. Even more, you can add a call-to-action at the end of your post. This will make it more likely for people to contact you with any thoughts or questions they may have about your company or blog post.
Optimize For SEO
Optimizing content is what makes your website easier to be found by those searching for the products and services you offer. While this may sound a bit techy, you don’t have to be a programmer to do it. Below are some tips to help boost your SEO rankings:
Meta Title & Description
Add important keywords to your meta title and description without overdoing it. An SEO title should be approximately 60-70 characters, while a meta description should be 155-160 characters. It should also describe your blog accurately. To do this, you can use an SEO plugin like YOAST to optimize your blog posts.
Title & Subheadings
Optimize your main title and subheadings with keywords people use to search for products and services like yours. For example, if you’re optimizing for the keyphrase “best nutritional supplements,” you can title your blog “What Are The Best Nutritional Supplements In The World?” You can also use this same keyphrase throughout your subheadings to break up and explain the content throughout your blog.
Add Links To Your Other Blogs
Linking to your other posts can help build pillar content. Google loves websites that provide lots of relevant, frequently updated content. Pillar content is substantial information on a specific topic that can be broken into different blogs.
For example, a pillar page might discuss “nutritional supplements” as a whole, and you link it to other blogs you’ve written on specific products that support that original post. This not only improves the organization of your content, Google likes a clean website with hyperlinks that make sense. This, in turn, makes it easier for them to crawl and index your website for SEO.
Link To Other Credible Websites
Adding backlinks to other credible websites that are relevant to your blog is a great way to boost SEO. Not only does this help boost traffic to the source, but search engines like Google tend to reward websites for sharing of reliable information.
Add ALT Text To Your Images
When you add images to your blog, make sure to fill each image’s ALT tag. Why? Visually impaired readers using screen readers will be read the ALT attribute to better understand what they can’t see. That’s why it’s important to make sure your image ALT tags are as descriptive and captivating as possible.
A URL Should Contain Keywords
The URL of your blog should be short and contain the keywords you’re optimizing for. For example, you would want our URL to look like this: https://myaimstore.com/blog/gain-a-social-media-following/,
NOT THIS: https://myaimstore.com/blog/71254
Use Long-Tail Keywords
Instead of using highly competitive keywords, long-tail key phrases are easier to target and rank for. Long-tail keywords are phrases that are more specific and longer than other commonly used keywords. While they are less searched, they offer higher conversion value as they are more specific. For example, instead of using “nutritional supplements,” try using “benefits of dietary supplements.”
Wrapping It Up
When it comes to your AIM member store, blogging is a must. Even with the emergence of other online marketing tools, blogs engage potential customers, increase website traffic, and boost your SEO in the process. Whatever your needs, blogging will help you reach farther, faster, and is a wonderful tool for growing followers and attracting new leads.