Why Your Posts Need to be Better Than a Message in a Bottle *

Why Your Posts Need to be Better Than a Message in a Bottle *

5 Elements You Need in Every Successful Blog Post

 

The growth of blogs has democratized the spreading of information.  It doesn’t matter what our stature is in the blogosphere or whether we are blogging for business or pleasure.  Our published writings are there for the world to see.  That’s a game-changer…

With that said, one question we all have is, “How can we make our blog successful?”  After following several bloggers for years, I began to analyze many of the blogs I was reading.  Doing this helped me understand why some bloggers were more successful than others.  Their content mattered, however it wasn’t the only reason for their success.

A few factors employed by successful bloggers began to emerge.  It soon became apparent that for a blog post to succeed it had to do three things.  To be successful every post has to effectively convey it’s message, it has to engage it’s readers, and it has to fulfill it’s blogger’s mission.  To achieve it’s goals, every post has to have these five critical elements.

Are your posts missing any of these critical elements?

  • A strong hook compels your visitors to continue reading. 
  • Descriptive subheadings make your content quickly scannable.
  • Thoughtful transitions guide your readers from point to point.
  • Outbound Links guiding your readers to more relevant content.
  • Your Conclusion Should Encourage Readers Further Action.

 

 

 

You Need a Strong Hook to Keep Your Readers Interested

 

I’ve never seen a successful blog post that didn’t have an engaging introduction.  I’ve read a lot of posts, that had introductions without a hook.  They didn’t have a compelling reason for the reader to keep going.

Let me give you an example of a good hook.  This is from a post I wrote in October, 20+ Ways Your Business Benefits From Using Social Media:

It begins by telling how more than 3 billion people are using social media platforms on a regular basis. Social media is where conversations begin and communities of like minded people meet to engage and exchange ideas.  

The benefits of using social media to grow your business are clearly stated.  There is also an implicit promise that this post will teach the reader how to “easily recreate these benefits for your blog”.

The first few sentences of your post, need to convince the reader that your post is worth their time.

 

Descriptive Subheadings Make Your Content Quickly Scannable

 

If your blog post is very short you probably don’t need to use subheadings.  However, anything longer than about 400 words would benefit from being broken into sections. Building an outline for longer posts makes it easier to organize your content ideas.  For your longer posts, using subheadings helps you compose a clear blog post outline.  

Subheadings act like signposts, guiding your reader through your story.  Subheadings also tell readers where they are and what’s coming next.  Without subheadings your points could begin to merge with each other.  You certainly don’t want people getting lost while reading your post.   If that happens, more than likely your visitor will simply stop reading.  

 

Thoughtful Transitions Guide Your Readers From Point to Point

 

A transition is a bridge taking your readers from one thought to the next.  Sometimes transitions are unnecessary, a subheading can be used instead.  However, if your post feels disjointed or choppy in it’s presentation of your content, you may need to add a quick transition.

Transitions may be helpful before a new post section.  Transitions also work well when you use them to introduce lists.

 

How to Use Links to Connect Readers to Additional Relevant Content

 

You don’t have to include links in your blog posts.  But the question I would ask you is, WHY NOT?  I believe it’s always a good idea to include at least one link, I usually include several.  I regularly include two types of links.  I include internal links which link to relevant information in my own blogs.  External links are also important.  External links provide relevant information from other websites:

 

 Search engines love both types of links and including them also helps build credibility with your readers.  Links on your blog posts help your readers dig in … and stick around.

  • Links to posts on other people’s blogs position you as someone helpful and knowledgeable.
  • Links to sites like Wikipedia show how you source your content.
  • Links to your products or services help you make more sales.
  • Links to books on Amazon can bring in affiliate income – and also make you look helpful and well informed.

 

I like to include links throughout my posts, these links give more information about a particular point I’m making. If you quote someone or give an example, that’s a great time to provide a link.

In some cases you might not want to distract your readers, a good example might be in certain how-to posts.  In those situations you should include some “further reading” or “where next?” suggestions at the end that blog section or at the end of the blog post.

 

Your Conclusion Should Encourage Further Readers Action

 

The conclusion is the element that bloggers neglect the most.  The message is clear, don’t end your post abruptly.  Your conclusion gives you a great opportunity to engage your readers one more time.  Your conclusion may be your final chance to positively influence their actions.

You might wonder what the best conclusion could be for your article.  Your conclusion should be a brief summation of your post’s content.  Finally, you need to give your “call to action”.

While you’re busy writing your blog post it may seem overwhelming to include everything you want.  We all work under time constraints, there never seems to be enough time in our days.  As we hurry to meet deadlines we might not include every idea that we wanted.  

That’s why my first step is to outline how my ideas will flow through my post.  After writing your first draft, if you’re like me, you then begin the hard part.  It’s also the important part.  Editing your ideas into a post that will engage your audience in a thoughtful and interesting way.  

However, as you edit you might want to use our five elements as a checklist.  Ensure that you have included each element, or have a good reason why you haven’t.

What are the important points that you include in every post?  Do you outline your post ideas before writing your post?  Do you miss using any of these 5 elements in tour posts?  Do you intend to include these elements in your next post?  Share your thoughts or tips with us in the comments.

 

How to Decrease Your Time on Social Media and be Productive *

How to Decrease Your Time on Social Media and be Productive *

How to Keep Social Media From Sucking Up all of Your Time

 

As bloggers, social media is a key tool for promoting our blogs.  Social media helps us to grow our blogs.  Social media allows us to interact with our readers.  Social Media gives us the opportunity to build our communities.  Social media keeps us informed about current events and news in our niche.  

However, social media can also be a massive drain on the limited time available to us.  The big challenge for all bloggers is time management.  How can we keep social media from sucking up all of our limited available time?

 

Two Ways Your Social Media Habits Could Impact Your Productivity

 

Avoid Spending Unscheduled Time on Social Media

 

Are you the blogger who spends large chunks of time on social media networks?  I understand that it is important to tending to your own community.  You do need to engage with other communities by leaving comments, and contributing to online discussions.  It is important to increase your exposure and become known in your niche.  However, you should schedule time for social media engagement.  Then stick to your schedule.

 

Avoid Constantly Checking Your Social Media for Comments

 

Don’t be the blogger who is constantly checking their social media.  Even using small amounts of time throughout your day adds up.  These small distractions can quickly add up to wasting a significant amount of time during your day.  Again, your social media time needs to be scheduled.  Stick to your schedule.  If you are unable to complete your tasks on social media, perhaps you need to schedule more time for those tasks.

 

How Does Your Social Media Behavior Impact Your Productivity?

 

How does this behavior on social media impact their productivity?  Social media impacts your productivity in three key ways:

 

  1. If the time you spend on social media outweighs your gains from using your social media networks.
  2. Single tasking can increase your blogging productivity while reducing your stress.  Research from the American Psychological Association has shown that multi tasking can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.
  3. Dividing your time between writing and social media takes you much longer to write your blog post because your mind is not 100% on the task at hand. Focus on writing while ignoring everything else.

 

Reduce the distraction of social media.  You need to reduce the above impacts and increase your blogging productivity.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t be on social media.  It just means you need to take a more planned and proactive approach to how you go about it.  Following are two actions you can take to enhance your productivity:

 

Create a Social Media Strategy That Reduces Distractions

It can be very tempting to sign up to every social media network.  Spending time daily on each of them is one way to create a social media presence, but it is unlikely to be successful.  

If you want to maximize the time you spend on social media, you need a defined social media strategy for your blog.  Your social media strategy doesn’t have to be complex and detailed.  But it needs to cover these key points:

 

How much time per day/week can you spend on social media?

You have to determine how much time you have available for blogging.  Then you have to decide how much of that time you need to spend on social media.  The amount of time will vary between bloggers.  There will be times when you may increase your time on social media to support your blogging goals.  The key is setting how much time you will spend on social media and then sticking to it.

 

What Networks are Best for Your Social Media Engagement?

 

Many bloggers sign up to most social media networks to have a presence on them.  However, unless you have a Social media manager, you may not have the time needed to truly engage on all of them.

Instead it may be preferable to select 2 or 3 and focus on them.  It’s more important to create great content to share and spend time building your communities on the best networks for showcasing your blog and business.

The benefits from having a more effective presence on fewer social media networks will be greater than spreading your efforts thinly over lots of networks.

 

You Should Define Your Goals for Each Social Media Network

 

You should have a goal for what you hope to achieve on each social media network.  It’s important to know why you are even on each social network.  For example, my goal for Twitter is to be seen as an expert in my niche.  I want to use Twitter to create freelance and media opportunities.

Facebook is about building a community where I can share high quality articles I curate specifically for them.  Through helping them as much as I can, I am building up trust that will hopefully lead to them purchasing my products and services.

 

You Need to Determine Your Posting Frequency for Each Social Network

 

It’s tough to stand out and be noticed on all of the social networks.  But that doesn’t mean posting more stuff will get you more notice.  Buffer recently changed their Facebook social media strategy with great success.

Buffer cut their posting frequency by more than 50% on Facebook and decided to focus on quality over quantity.  Their results underwent a dramatic shift.  More than the most optimistic social media manager couldn’t have expected.

Even though they were posting less, their Facebook reach and engagement began to increase.

 

How Changing Our Social Media Scheduling Reaped Rewards

 

  • I determined how frequently I post to each network and the type of content I share.  I use Blog2Social to schedule my posts to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, Medium and Tumblr.
  • I use Feedly to read blogs and articles.  Feedly helps me digest a lot of information to share on my networks. I will spend 10 – 15 minutes several times a week selecting items that I want to share.
  • I set aside 45 – 60 mins a week to batch schedule my recycled and repurposed social media posts.  I head to Blog2Social to determine which posts I will repurpose and share and to what networks.

 

Develop a Social Media Process That Works for You

 

Creating a specific process like this means you reduce the amount of time you go searching for content to share or procrastinating about what to share. Once I have the week scheduled, I see this as my base content and will still often share content, add conversation and respond to questions/comments on my networks when I check in once a day.

Social media doesn’t have to decrease your productivity. Create a social media strategy and batching process so you are in control of how you spend your time on social media and see your productivity flourish!

Do you find you are spending too much time on social media?

 

Make Your Blog Posts More Engaging and Conversational *

Make Your Blog Posts More Engaging and Conversational *

To Be Effective Your Blog Posts Must Be Engaging

 

I’m sure that you’ve already heard that your blog posts need to be written in a style that is  “conversational”.  You may not understand why it is important to do this.  Your posts are telling your story and creating a connection with your audience.  To keep your audience engaged, your blog needs to come across like a discussion.  You don’t want your blog to come across like your blog is a lecture.

 

Your posts are telling your story and creating a connection with your audience

That’s all true.  But writing in a conversational style goes against the normal rules for business writing.  However, If your blog posts sound dry and stilted your audience will become bored and click away.  To prevent that I’m going to discuss three simple things you can do to improve your writing style.

 

You Need to Talk Directly to Your Audience

 

You should write your post as if you’re talking to a specific reader.  I find that picturing an actual person helps me, it can be someone you know or just an imaginary profile that you are targeting.  If it helps you can even imagine you’re emailing them or writing them a Facebook post or comment.

It’s important to use words like “I” and “you”, even though you were probably taught not to at school.  When you’re blogging it’s preferable for you to write from your personal experience and to invite the reader to step into your post.

 

Blogging is telling your story and creating a connection with your audience

Here’s a great example from Jim Stewart’s post 9 Tips for Recovering Your Google Rankings After a Site Hack.  I’ve highlighted his use of “you” and “your” to help understand what I’m talking about.

“If your WordPress site has been hacked, fear not.  By following these tips you can fortify your site and kick wannabe hackers to the curb.

And provided you act quickly, your WordPress site’s SEO traffic—and even its reputation—can recover within 24 hours.”

In the sample, Jim is using a clear, direct writing style that speaks directly to his reader’s problem.  It’s also very easy to read, understand, and engage with.  it’s almost like having Jim on the phone, talking you through fixing your problem.

You may notice that as Jim does here, always try to use the singular “you” rather than the plural “you”.  I do hope that you have more than one reader.   However, each reader will experience your blog posts individually.  Avoid writing things like “some of you” unless you’re deliberately trying to create a sense of a group environment.

 

You Should Use an Informal Writing Style

 

Writing styles range from very formal to very informal.  I’ve included some examples to help you understand the differences:

Very formal:   Users are not allowed to duplicate, modify, distribute, reproduce or resell any of the included materials.

Formal:   To request a refund, complete our form, include your customer reference number.  Your refund guarantee period is for 30 calendar days from your purchase date.

Neutral:   You will get a confirmation mail after subscribing to our newsletter.  Click the link in the email to confirm your subscription.

Informal:   Hi Buddy, send the link to that thing we talked about.  Thanks!

Very informal:  C U 2morrow!!!

 

You Should Use an Informal Writing Style for Your Blog Posts

Your blogging should be an informal or at least a casual neutral writing style.  Write as if you were emailing a friend.  Doing this makes you seem warm and approachable. Typically, you’ll be using:

  • Contractions like “you’ll” for “you will”
  • Straightforward language such as “get” rather than “receive” or “obtain”
  • Chatty phrases like “you’ll be all set”
  • Possibly slang, if it fits with your personal style “thing”
  • Short sentences and paragraphs
  • Some “ungrammatical” features where appropriate, starting a sentence with “And”

 

This is a good place to take a closer look at some of the blogs you read yourself.  Check out how they create a sense of rapport through their language?  How would you rewrite part of their post to make it more or less formal?  What words or phrases would you change?

 

Give Your Reader Space to Respond

 

Conversations are two-way which means letting your readers have a say too.  If you’ve decided to close comments on your blog, you should open a different avenue for your readers to get involved.  You could use a Facebook page or group to engage your audience.

Remember, when you’re writing your post you don’t need to have the last word on everything.  You don’t have to tie up every loose end.  It’s fine to say you’re still thinking about a particular subject. Or that you’re still learning about it.  This gives your readers the opportunity to jump in and share their expertise or experiences.

 

You may want to consider opening up a different avenue for readers to get involved, such as a Facebook page or group.

You can simply ask readers to add to your post.  If you’ve written, “10 Great Ways to Have More Fun With Your Blogging”.  Ask your readers to share their own ideas in the comments.  Some people won’t comment unless you invite them to do so.  You could add a suggestion such as “What would you add to this list?” or “Have you tried any of these ideas?”)

 

Some of My Best Ideas Come From Comments

 

Some of my best blog post ideas have come from a reader’s suggestion or question in a comment.  Many other comments have gotten me to think more about a particular topic.

There’s no one “right” way to blog.  Some blogs will be more conversational than others.  If you’d like to make your own posts a bit more conversational, look for opportunities to:

  • Use “you” and “I”.  Talk directly to your reader.  Share from your own experiences where it is appropriate.
  • Make your language fairly informal.  Don’t worry about everything being “correct,” let your voice and style shine through.
  • Open the conversation, invite readers to comment.  Encourage them to check out your Facebook page or join your Facebook group.

 

Have you tried making your blog more conversational?  Or is it something you’re just getting started with?  Either way, leave a comment below to share your experiences and tips.

 

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