There are a few elements which are indispensable when it comes to writing a blog. Whether it’s for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes or merely for the transparent and comprehensive outlook of the whole site, you will definitely be satisfied with the results if you take some of these advices.
It is not a surprise that a blog is all about content and information. What you share, how you share and why you share. To make it truly successful, first make some research.
You should map the demand of the consumers and try to match it with your supply. Ask some basic questions: is the information I’m about to share needed? Is it relevant? Will it help people? Do they have problems and they are looking for solutions?
After having the answers for your questions, you might start thinking about creating the informational content. Be creative, find out how you can make it original, unique and interesting. Learn from others and always be 100% aware of the topics you are writing about.
Title is a key feature in many aspects. It’s a short phrase in your headline representing the topic of your blog. Choose it wisely because this is the first thing your visitors see when they enter your site. It has to refer to what is your blog all about.
Conducting a keyword research can be pretty useful. Once you’ve chosen your main subject, see which are the keywords search engines understand the most. It’s extremely important to place the right ones in your title because search engines find websites based on keywords written in its title, URL and meta description. Find out which keywords does your target audience type in when they are looking for answers to their particular problems.
Let’s split this one in two main aspects: logical structure and the structure of appearance. In order to make navigation and orientation easier, you have to build up a concrete, coherent structure which is transparent and easy to understand.
You may have encountered a certain situation when you bumped into a good site with relevant and useful informational content, but it was nearly impossible to find the particular things you were looking for. I’m sure it was quite annoying, am I right? Make sure to organize the sections of your blog in a comprehensible way. List your blogposts in their own categories, use short and straight entry-words for each part, especially if you write blogs in various topics. Just like this one:
Let’s imagine that you have a gastro blog. You write about exciting new recipes and restaurant reviews too. They both could be relevant for a successful gastro blog, but they refer to two completely different topics.
How about separating them on your blog in different sections so visitors can efficiently find what they are actually looking for?
Being newsworthy and innovative is very important, but try to write related content.
Besides, you have to lay emphasis on the structure of appearance too.
Design is one of the most important features, because it is a complex visual effect a visitor receives entering your blog. (Take a look at that picture of a well-designed blog above).
Think about the subject of your blog for a minute. Which colors reflect your site the best? What sort of design elements can mirror the topic of your site?
Use the purity of white spaces wisely to make things transparent and to avoid overcrowding. Researches have shown that half of the users will read your blog on their tablets or smartphones. Create a design that won’t lose its transparency when someone views it on various devices. Use a font large and simple enough to make it easily readable on smaller screens too.
Links are also obvious necessities when it comes to creating a blog. Both internal and external links are serve your visitors to easily find the information they are looking for. They serve your site too by gathering more views via the search engines.
After keywords the next thing search engines check is the relevance of your content. If you place external links in the right areas of your blog and/or in each of your blogposts, you can generate better rankings to your site. Referring to a popular webpage which offers relevant informational content is a great SEO strategy.
Also educate and help your audience with useful information and instructions so other sites could refer to yours too in their blogposts. Place your website’s link (if you have one) as an internal link around the middle or upper sides of your blog. This will likely lead your visitors to your site where they can get more information about what you actually offer.
If you have other types of products, services besides your blogposts; for example, e-books, videos, downloadable content, etc. use a call to action button (CTA) to make it easily noticeable. CTAs function is to give a concrete instruction to your visitors, so it‘s useful for many other aspects too. (For example as you can see on the pictures, persuading the visitors to subscribe to your blog). You can use more than two CTA-s in your blog but the standard is to use at least one above the fold:
and one below if you wish:
The design and structure of the CTA button is also important. Use colors and other visual elements to make it eye-catching. CTAs will help your visitors to find what they are really looking for, and make the navigation fluent. With those little upfront buttons placed on your site you set the connection between your readers and you.
Informing, helping and educating are the main reasons for the existence of a blog and communication is the tool. CTA-s will make communication more direct and personal.
Social media has become the all-time platform for sharing information and connecting people. It’s pretty unbelievable to create a website, a company, a blog, or even to reach a personal emergence without being an active user of at least one of the social sites.
The logo of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram positioned on some easily perceptible area will make it simple for people to find your social media connections. This way they can immediately like, share and review what you do in other platforms too.
Another indispensable point in the SEO strategy is the description. Remember that search engines are responsible for uniting the supply and demand of the internet users. Meta descriptions are meant to explain the supply of your blog. Its purpose is to get visitors from Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. to click on your site.
The more people click on your result, the higher your blog’s ranking will be. That’s why it is so important to write and optimize your meta description. In the case you don’t do that, search engines will show the first couple of lines of written content on your blog as the description, which might not be so relevant.
Make it unique, but be aware of keywords. Using particular long-term-keywords referring to your content is a great idea to make sure that both happens.
The length of the description is also important, make it around 135–150 characters, so your whole text can appear for example on a google match. The description should contain the will of helping and educating, as a sort of call-to-action to your blog to catch the attention of users.
Whether you are sharing information on your social media page or creating and sharing a regular video on YouTube, timing is very important. These apply to blogposts too.
In order to keep up your visitor’s attention you have to post current, up-to-date content regularly. It doesn’t matter if you post once in a month, weekly or daily, try to stick to your schedule. Regularity will make your blog a well-structured and an informative platform, which readers can rely on.
Your blog cannot be relevant and trustworthy if your texts are grammatically incorrect. You have to keep in mind that spelling is far more important than you might think. Even a small, hiding little mistake in your writing can be noticed by another eye and your text can immediately lose its trustworthiness.
Before publishing your blogposts, use spellcheck to make sure it contains no accidental typo or grammatical error. If it’s possible, have other people to read it through because two heads are better than one.
Images, pictures are important because of various reasons.
A representative, well positioned and good quality picture can worth a thousand words. Make it eye-catchy so it will rise and drive attention. The use of diagrams, graphics and illustrations will make your information more digestable.
Furthermore, they can be a useful SEO tool too. People translate the content of an image easily. Search engines do it by the alternative text of the image. In other words, the alternative text carries the same essential information as the image. By adding alt-texts to them you will make sure that the search engines will find your images by the keywords that the users type in.
You may write all of your blogposts by yourself or have other employees, coworkers or friends with whom you work together and publish writings separately. There’s a thing every writer should keep in mind when creating a blogpost: always mark the copyright. This could be useful for many reasons.
On one hand I have to highlight the importance of copyright from legal aspects. You own the things you create and have to take responsibility for them. On the other hand, this way other writers, bloggers or just inquiring visitors can get in touch with you. This will make communication easier so leave the name of the author, the date of the publish of the post and an e-mail address. You can also share some basic information about the author of the posts. A good reference, a CV or personal achievements could add to the value of the blog.
And there you have it! 10 basic criteria of a successful blog. We hope these simple tips and tricks will help you in the improvement process of your personal site. Make sure to keep them in mind when creating each blogpost too. Remember, a blog is all about relevant and interesting informational content, published in order to help and educate people.
