10 Essential Ingredients to a Successful Blog Post

Writing a successful blog post can be a bit of a task, especially if you’re just starting out. But what makes up a successful blog post? What catches the eye of the reader and what helps with SEO? All of these are important questions as you enter the blogging world.

An Eye-Catching Headline

The first point of interest readers will be attracted by with any post is the title. The title should be eye catching with emotion and power words but not too long. Coschedule has a wonderful headline analyzer here. It will analyze your potential headline and tell you what you’re lacking.

Impeccable Opening Paragraph

It’s important, once you’ve caught the readers eye with your remarkable headline, to keep them interested with a well thought out first paragraph. Explain what you’ll be writing about, get the point across and leave interest so the reader wants to continue reading.

A Point

Nobody really likes reading articles are blog posts that never truly have a point. Make sure you have a point. For instance, this blog post’s point is to teach you how to write a successful blog post. That’s given in the headline and the first paragraph, now as I’m writing, that point has to be coming across. I actually should be doing just that.

Structure

For readability and SEO (search engine optimization) it is important to give your blog post structure. This includes headings and subheadings. Paragraphs should be short, no more than 2 or 3 sentences. Each sentence should be no more than 20 words. You should also have a clear and concise conclusion.

Make it Unique

Try to provide your readers with something unique and different. Often times we have the same content ideas then others, how does your idea differ. For instance, you may write a blog post about essentials to have in a hospital bag for labor and delivery. Why are your essentials more important than others? Share something unique and different then the posts you see about the same subject matter.

Add Visual Content

Having photos or videos to enhance your written content is wonderful. Either help build interest in the reader. Make sure the visual content is eye catching and unique. Also make sure any visual content fits the subject matter. For instance, if you’re writing about motherhood and parenting post a picture of a mother, kids, father, etc. There are a couple free stock photo websites I love to use, they are unsplash.com and Pexels.com.

Share Your Own Experience

Blogging is not the same as writing news articles or writing for magazines. There is a lot more personal interaction and community built into blogs. For this reason it’s important to be authentic and share yourself, your experiences and thoughts.

Provide Relevant Resources

If you’re providing any knowledge that you yourself are not an expert on, then you should be providing sources for your research. Even if you are an expert it is important to have evidence to back you up.

Internal Links

It is wonderful when you are able to link back to some of your own content to bring home a point. For instance, you may be writing about motherhood and anxiety, in doing so you speak about helping those around you with anxiety, then you link to a previous article in which you write about helping others with anxiety. This helps boost views to blog posts within your own blog.

Add a Question

Blogs, like stated above, build a community. They should be interactive, this can mean adding a question or call to action. Ask your reader their opinion and invite them to comment on the blog post. Or, build your own community for future support and discussion on another platform, such as a Facebook Group. Then after each blog post provide a call to action to join the group.

Every reader and every blog should be unique, thus providing some value to each other. Take what you see, what you like from others, what you do not like, and create YOUR blog. Uniquely you and you’ll be able to build a wonderful community and create great value for your readers.

Sarah

Sunrise Virtual Assistant Services