4 SMART WAYS TO WRITE A BLOG POST PEOPLE WON’T IGNORE

You develop your brand, launch your website and start a content rich blog. You brainstorm, compose, research, design and edit every post. After months of hard work and long hours you still have little traffic, few comments, no social sharing and no increase in sales.

Your blog posts are being ignored ... What are you doing wrong?

Well I asked myself that same question. Although this is still a ‘work in progress’ for me, after lots of research, some trial and error and a steady rise in traffic this is what I’ve learned about writing a post people won’t ignore. I broke it down into 4 parts.

1. Narrow Your Scope

If you try to cover a broad topic in one post you risk being too vague and losing your reader’s interest . Nobody (especially you) has an unlimited amount of time to pursue a topic, so make your point. Be specific and try to include a need (my blog posts are being ignored) and a benefit (how to write a blog post people won’t ignore).

2. The 4 ‘C’s. Write Clearly, Concisely, Conversationally and be Compelling.

These 4 words are the holy grail of successful blogging.

Be clear. Know your audience, be specific, keep it simple and grab their attention. The goal is to make them want to read more.

Be concise. Shorter sentences, smaller paragraphs. Make your point in as few words as possible.

Be conversational. You want to write as if you were having a conversation with someone. Inject your own personality but don’t go overboard.

Tell a compelling story. Demian Farnworth from problogger tells us we will keep our readers wanting more by using ‘internal cliffhangers’. Here are examples he gives us:

• Curiosity: It’s what killed the cat. And the lone teenager at youth camp who thought she heard a noise in that abandoned cabin. But curiosity works on the intellectual level, too.

• Challenges: Make a bold claim at the end of a paragraph that strikes people as audacious, and they’ll stick around to see if you can pull it off.

• Humor: When the jokes inside your knee-slapping posts are killing your readers … they want more. (Caveat: you actually have to be funny to make this work.)

• Amazement: Set up the most ridiculous scenario you can and your readers will wonder: “Is he about to do what he suggests?” Think Cyclops getting ready to throw a chicken across the street.

• Doubt: Challenge a conventional belief or an opinion of a respected leader … and say “I’ll show you why he/this is wrong.”

• A turn of phrase: We get hooked to writers who can conjure up an attractive metaphor, concoct an alluring idiom. This is why the metaphor “fiscal cliff” has such power. Or this: “He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.”

Related Post: 5 Key Elements to Creating a Blog with Purpose

3. Add Key Ingredients

• Titles are important! They should be SEO rich, use numbers at the beginning, be specific but not too long and grab attention. Iris Shoor from The Startup Moon ( naming a post ) claims that trending posts have included the words smart, surprising, science, history, hacks, huge (big), and critical.

• Bold subtitles, numbered/ bullet points and quotes make the post easy to scan when short on time without losing the point.

• Add Interesting Images. This will break up your words and keep your reader glued to your post. You can purchase images, find copyright free ones or create your own.

• Add ‘related posts’ at the end of every post or link to other content to keep your readers engaged in your blog.

• Write a killer ending and add a call to action! You want your readers to feel good about the time they spent with you and be specific about what you want them to do next. Do you want them to comment? Share your post? Buy your product? Be inspired?

“Add Interesting Images. This will break up your words and keep your reader glued to your post.”

4. Edit. Edit. Edit.

Like most of you, I already know about the importance of proper spelling and grammar when writing a post but it bears repeating. We all misspell words on occasion and sometimes thoughts sound better in our head then they read typed so edit, a lot.

Cut out the fat! I am not a natural writer so I have a tendency to go on forever about a topic and my point gets lost in the jungle of my words. Delete useless words! Don’t get obsessive about it, the point is not to make it perfect (boring!) but to make it readable and relatable.

Mix all of these ingredients together and you will have a carefully crafted masterpiece that will guarantee your blog posts will not be ignored.

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