Last updated on November 7th, 2024 at 03:35 am
Blogging can be a great way to generate organic traffic, build trust with potential customers, and get leads for your business.
However, merely publishing content is not enough, you also need to make sure that each blog post provides value to your target audience.
That’s why today we are going to discuss how to write value-packed blog posts that captivate your readers…
Clearly Define Your Target Audience
If you already have a business, the target audience of your blog should be your dream customers.
And if you don’t have anything to sell yet, we recommend focusing on a demographic that is relatively easy to monetize.
Take inventory of your knowledge, skills, and experience. What is the most painful problem that you can help someone solve?
Aim to attract readers who have that problem and who are willing and able to pay for a solution.
Of course, if all you want is to have a personal blog where you can share your thoughts with the world, then none of that matters. Write about whatever interests you.
However, if you want to make money online, you need to think carefully about choosing your target audience. It’s a decision that will have a huge impact on the business potential of your blog.
Generally speaking, the more you niche down, the easier it will be to create valuable content and monetize your blog, provided that your readers have enough disposable income to pay for your products and services!
Create a Content Strategy for Your Blog
Here are the five types of blog posts that you should consider incorporating into your content strategy:
- Content pillars that serve as comprehensive introductions to the main subjects that you discuss on your blog.
- SEO articles that target long-tail keywords and are designed to answer specific questions.
- Thought leadership essays where you share your unique insights. Ideally, these posts should be evergreen.
- Case studies where you break down how someone who was in a similar situation as your readers achieved something that they want to achieve.
- Timely content where you comment on the latest industry developments, news, trending topics, etc.
As you add more and more content to your blog, you will be able to start linking back to your previous posts, which will make it easier for your readers to catch up to speed if they are not familiar with something.
Eventually, your blog should evolve into a comprehensive knowledge base that your readers can explore if they want to learn more about your area of expertise!
Do Keyword Research and Choose a Target Keyword
Content pillars, SEO blog posts, and timely articles should all be optimized for specific target keywords.
If you are just starting out and your blog is brand new, you want to go after keywords that have low to medium search volume and low competition.
There are a lot of free keyword research apps out there. You might want to check out Ryan Robinson’s keyword research tool, Ahrefs’ keyword generator, and Google’s keyword planner.
Consider investing in Ahrefs if you can afford it. This premium suite of SEO tools is widely considered to be the industry standard by digital marketers who specialize in search engine optimization.
Also, Ahrefs has a ton of free resources that can be helpful for SEO beginners. For example, this free 3-hour course that is available on YouTube provides a great introduction to blogging for business!
Do Competitive Research and Figure Out How to Make Your Blog Post Better
Google optimizes its search algorithm to meet the user’s search intent.
If you want to get one of the ten spots on the first page of search results, you will need to meet the search intent better than the content that is already ranking for your target keyword.
So read everything on the first page of search results and figure out how to make your content better.
Here are some ideas:
- Make your blog post more comprehensive
- Format your blog post properly so that it is skimmable
- Include real-world examples, case studies, and data with sources
- Embed relevant, high-quality YouTube videos that add value
- Share your unique experiences
The difficulty of outcompeting your rivals will largely depend on the space you are in. Some industries are lagging behind in terms of search engine optimization. Meanwhile, in other industries, everyone is using the latest, cutting-edge SEO tactics.
Ultimately, though, it all boils down to this: are you willing to put more work into your content than your competitors have put into theirs?
Write a Blog Post That Meets the Search Intent for Your Target Keyword
Don’t Use AI!
If you are tempted to use ChatGPT to write your blog post, we strongly advise against it. Why?
Because large language models like ChatGPT are too unreliable: they have a tendency to make things up and state them as facts. Computer scientists call this phenomenon “hallucinations”.
You might also want to consider the fact that the current flood of “AI slop” is ruining search results. This means that it’s just a matter of time until Google starts cracking down on AI-generated content if it isn’t doing that already. That’s why it’s best to avoid it altogether!
Prioritize Meeting the Search Intent Above Everything Else
Your top priority should be to meet the search intent as best you can.
This means that you might need to disregard some of the common search engine optimization advice if it comes into conflict with meeting search intent.
For example, there’s this popular belief that the longer the blog post, the better. But that’s just not true.
Your blog post should be however long it needs to be to meet the search intent. Maybe that means 500 words, maybe 5,000. It all depends on your target keyword.
Don’t pad the word count just to make your article longer because Google is getting better at detecting fluff and downranking bloated articles.
Always orient yourself towards meeting the search intent because that is the only way to align your blog post with Google’s primary goal of helping its users find the information that they are looking for. SEO tactics come and go but the search intent remains!
Follow Copywriting Principles if You Want to Make Your Blog Post More Captivating
We highly recommend learning some copywriting and following its principles if you want to make your blog posts more captivating.
Also, if you are blogging for business, the purpose of your blog posts should be to attract potential customers and convert them into leads. Copywriting can help you with that. It’s persuasion via the written word.
In our opinion, “Copywriting Secrets” by our friend Jim Edwards is the best introduction to copywriting. It was written specifically for entrepreneurs who want to learn this skill so that they could grow their businesses faster.
What’s best is that you can get this book for free. All Jim asks is that you cover the shipping!
Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!
Add a Call to Action at the End of Your Blog Post
So how exactly do you convert blog readers into leads?
First, you will need to create a sales funnel for your business. If you want to learn how to do that, check out our definitive guide on building sales funnels.
Alternatively, you can read our co-founder Russell Brunson’s book “DotCom Secrets”, in which he explains everything that you need to know in order to build a sales funnel that converts.
Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!
Once you have your sales funnel, you should create a call to action (CTA) designed to promote your lead magnet. Add this CTA at the end of every blog post.
And if you have several lead magnets, create CTAs for each of them and then choose the most relevant CTA for every blog post.
For example, at the time of writing, we are using six different CTAs for six different lead magnets: four for Russell’s books, one for Jim’s book, and one for our free trial. At the end of this article, we have our “Copywriting Secrets” CTA because it’s the most relevant to the subject.
You can also mention your lead magnets in the article itself but you should only do that when it’s relevant and adds value. It should not interfere with meeting the search intent.
For example, we mentioned “Copywriting Secrets” and “DotCom Secrets” because we assumed that if you were reading this article, you would probably be interested in blogging for business. Both books are highly relevant to that!
Format Your Blog Post for Optimum Skimmability
Usability research has established that Internet users typically don’t read online content in its entirety. Instead, they scan it. This has been true for more than two decades.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure that your blog post is skimmable:
- Use the title tag for the title
- Use the H2 tag for the headlines
- Use the H3 tag for the subheadlines
- Incorporate bullet points, numbered lists, and tables
- Break up the text with images and YouTube videos
- Keep your paragraphs short. Most of them should be 2-3 lines. 4-5 line paragraphs should be rare. Do not go above 5 lines!
We also recommend adding a table of contents at the beginning of your blog posts, especially if they are longer than 1,500 words.
You might also want to preview your blog posts on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone just to see if the formatting looks good on all devices. Keep in mind that mobile traffic makes up the majority of global web traffic (54.67% as of Q4 2023)!
Optimize Your Blog Post for SEO But Don’t Go Overboard With it!
Finally, if you can afford to invest in content optimization tools like Clearscope or Surfer, you might want to consider doing so.
If you paste the draft of your blog post into Clearscope, it will show you:
- Overall content grade. Aim for A++.
- Readability level. Aim for middle school level.
- The word count of your blog post and the typical word count for that keyword. If your word count is way below the typical word count, your article might not be comprehensive enough to fully meet the search intent.
- A list of semantic keywords that are related to your target keyword. Include as many of these in your blog post as you can but only if you are able to do it naturally. Don’t turn your article into a keyword salad.
- The number of times each semantic keyword is typically mentioned in the content that is currently ranking for your target keyword. Ideally, you want to use the same frequency, but only if it makes sense in the context of your article.
- Which semantic keywords typically appear in the headlines of the articles that are currently ranking for your target keyword. You should probably incorporate them into your headlines as well.
The suggestions of content optimization apps can be helpful but they can also lead you astray so don’t follow them blindly. Always use the search intent as your North Star!
Want to Learn How to Write Copy That CONVERTS?
You can have the best product in the world but guess what?
If you can’t convey its value to your dream customers, you will lose out to competitors with inferior products but better copy. Sad but true.
That’s why if you are serious about building a business, you need to learn copywriting.
In fact, we would argue that it’s the single most important entrepreneurial skill.
Our friend Jim Edwards wrote a best-selling book “Copywriting Secrets” for busy entrepreneurs just like you.
In this book, he covers everything you need to know in order to start writing copy that CONVERTS.
“Copywriting Secrets” is available on Amazon where it has over 1,800 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.
But you can also get it directly from Jim for free.
All he asks is that you cover the shipping!
So what are you waiting for? 🧐