It is important to regularly update your blog and website to keep current customers engaged. It’s also an excellent way to attract potential new customers. But just churning out any old blog content will have the opposite effect. You never want to turn potential customers away from your site and redirect them to sites that offer better content.

This post discusses the seven important writing tips (along with some great tools) to keep your blog content relevant and engaging. Using these tips will help you to consistently bring traffic to your site. 

Tip #1: Determine the Goals for Your Blog Content

When you add new content, it’s easy to think that’s the end of it. However, this is only the beginning.

How is your content going to be seen by your customers?

What are your goals?

What is your content action plan?

Before your put pen to paper, take a couple minutes to think about your goals and strategies:

1 – Write a Strategy Plan

This doesn’t have to be “War and Peace”; it just needs to outline what you will do with your content. Something as simple as tweet four times and post to Facebook can be enough to ensure consistent marketing.

2 – Set Business Orientated Goals

Ask yourself why you are producing your content.

  • Do you want conversions?
  • New followers?
  • Backlinks?

Whatever you are aiming to do, make sure you know what it is so you can concentrate your efforts on the end goal.

3 – Decide How You Will Measure Your Success

It doesn’t matter how good your plan is if you don’t measure its success. Determine which metrics you will track, and see how well your content is working for you. Google Analytics is a good way of tracking customer behavior on your site. 

4 – Understand your Audience

Your content will only work if it appeals to your traffic. For example, a cake decorating business wouldn’t expect to gain much by writing an article about fly fishing – no matter how great the article is, it doesn’t appeal to their core readership.

5 – Constantly Modify your Strategy

Using the information you gather in your brainstorming sessions and the metric tracking, you will see what works and what doesn’t. Concentrate on doing more of what works.

6 – Keep an Eye on Your ROI

You need to monitor your ROI – make sure the amount of money you are putting into producing good content is achieving the level of profit you would expect.

7 – Conference Regularly with your Marketing Team

Ensure the strategy is working by discussing your content’s performance, and social media engagement. Brainstorm any new ideas.

Tip #2: Produce Original Content

Copying other people’s content won’t win you any readers. Why not go a step further with your blog content?

  •  Find The Hook: Instead of writing the same article as everyone else, granted in your own words, why not write the article that no one else has? Your readers will love your unique perspective. Ask yourself what is missing from the other articles you’ve read. Now research that area and write about that. That’s your hook.
  • Market it to The Right People: Look on forums and across social media at the types of people who are reading about your chosen subject. Promote your posts to those people – they already have an interest in the topic, and you are providing a new perspective on it.

Tip #3: Edit and Proofread

It doesn’t matter how good your content is – if it’s littered with mistakes, readers will look elsewhere for well-written content. Consider employing an editor or proofreader. The downside is that this obviously costs money, but the positives can bring amazing results.

There are many sites such as upwork, toptal, freelancer, rated writing, peopleperhour that can be great places to look for a good editor.

A good editor will:

  • Make your content read well
  • Correct any errors
  • Polish your content, giving it a wholly professional feel

Tip #4: Use Proven Marketing Tools to Help You

These tools can all help your blog content stand out:

BuzzSumo – Enter any topic and see what type of content is trending now. 

Hubspot Post Generator – Type in keywords you want to use and the site will give you post topic ideas.

Readability checker or Grammar Guide – Your blog may have this built in, but if not, a readability test tool and grammar guide can give you tips to make your content more reader-friendly and accurate

Hemingway Editor  – The app shows you how to improve on each sentence you write.

Piktochart – This is a great tool for building infographics, another way to present information and break your content up.

Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyser – This tool tells you likely your post title is to make a reader feel moved. Aim for over 50%. Use this alongside KingSumo Headlines to help chose a perfect title.

Tip #5: Use Outside Sources

Using outside sources can help keep your content fresh and relevant and can be used in many ways:

  • Provide Accurate Information: Unless you are writing an opinion piece, use outside sources to check that what you are saying is true.
  • Use Data and Examples: If you are saying something that is quantifiable, refer to the data and example points from the original source to show you are not just making it up as you go along!
  • Use Quotes from Experts: Using experts’ quotes can really add validity to your posts and help to show readers that you are credible.

Tip #6: Focus on Your Words

  • Try to focus on one key idea per article. Otherwise, it can come across as messy. Once you have chosen your key idea, expand on it and talk about various facets of it.
  • Try to reduce jargon. People don’t want to look up definitions just to read your posts.
  • Write in your own voice. Posts and articles with a bit of personality read much better than something that sounds like a robot put it together. Don’t be afraid to give a little bit of yourself to readers.
  • Read the Ultimate List of 1000 Powerful Words That Will Make You A Social Media Rockstar

Common Power Words still have power to your blog content

Tip #7: Work On Your Visuals

A long body of text can be off-putting to readers, so always mix up the content in a way that looks visually appealing.

  • Use infographics, tables, and graphs, and photographs to break up your text.
  •  Format your text using headings and subheadings, and try to keep paragraphs short.

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By following these simple steps, you are giving your blog content the very best chance of building up a regular readership. Your readership will be more likely to consist of engaged followers who will share your content with others. And as you become a respected authority in your field, people will be much more likely to purchase your products or services.