How to Write A Successful Blog That Actually Gets Read

Writing a successful blog takes time, research and effort on your behalf. But the key to it all is that it supposed to be fun! Or at least appear like it’s fun. There are some key strategies you can employ to write a successful blog that gets read. So much of the future of inbound marketing and SEM will depend upon the amount and quality of your online content. But simply putting keywords on a page doesn’t necessarily work for the long-term. To write a blog that gets plus-one’d or Facebook liked is what you need. So what does it take to write a successful blog?

In this decade, the two marketing halves are combined into what is now called inbound marketing. When you write blogs, you must write a successful blog post in order to achieve both objectives. On the one hand, you must create trust in your brand but you must also link your blogs to your website in order to drive more traffic and create leads. In future days, blogs will be the only real advertising that will matter.

This HubSpot article popped up in my inbox a few weeks ago and it has some great tips on creating and writing a successful blog. And their list only contains niche markets that you would think are dull and not very fun at all. But just the contrary is apparently true.

So here are the reasons why I personally read blogs.

I want to read simple and clean writing

Make your blog article easy to read. Use the simplest language possible for the buyer personas that will be reading it. Know your audience and you’ll know the words and the tone to use. When you hire ghost bloggers to do the work for you, make sure they understand to whom they are writing. I read blogs that speak to my sense of professionalism in the field of inbound marketing. I don’t read the blogs that condescend to my knowledge level.

However, I don’t mind being condescended to when I don’t understand a subject (like coding HTML emails, for example.) Then I seek out blogs whose tone speaks to my personality as a beginner and not an industry insider. What is your audience like? Understand your buyer personas. Some potential leads will have full knowledge of your product or service. Others are scrambling for simple to understand information. Make a clear distinction between these two and when you write blogs, tailor each to a specific target persona.

Successful blogs are engaging

The purpose behind writing blogs is not simply to sell your product. The purpose is to build a community of followers. In previous decades, companies struggled to create dual direct marketing campaigns: One: To build a brand for long-term loyalty; and two: To sell a product or service. In the past decade, however, the two halves have become one.

Brand loyalty now develops from the conversation you have with your community. And that dialogue must serve both parties, not just your private agenda. Traditional marketing approaches still work, though and so you should know them in order to produce your content. You must familiarize yourself with the marketing acronym ‘AIDA’ and learn how to craft blogs based upon it. AIDA stands for:

• Attract
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Attract

When you create any advertisement (especially where direct marketing is concerned), the reader is likely to click away very quickly. Just like in junk mail, the key to the envelope is to get it opened. So to is it with writing a successful blog. Your headline must “attract”. So ask a question, or answer a question or entice the reader with the offer of vital information. Then your blog will actually get opened and possibly read.

Interest

The next line after the headline should entice my “interest.” It is like a cliffhanger that makes people want to find out more. If you open with a question, answer that question in the first paragraph.

Desire

Once you’ve got a person hooked, create desire for your product. If your blog is about bringing attention to a problem your reader has, then show why your service is one of the ways to deal with it. Once the “desire” to solve the problem occurs, your product should be one of the most enticing ways to do the job.

Action

Tell your reader how they can solve their problem immediately. Tell them to contact you. Put a link so they can contact you. You need to make it clear what to do next. Otherwise they will likely wander off in search of more information. The Internet is a quick moving, easily navigable space. If you ask someone to click a button, they will. As long as it appears to lead to something they desire, have interest in, or are attracted to.

Quality writing quality content is essential

Having quality, timely and relevant content is vital to your campaign and branding process. The tendency is for business blogging campaigns to want to “sell” and describe their services first and foremost. This makes for some pretty bland blogs after awhile. Is there anything else your blog can give me? I like the idea of having inspirational quotes as part of your site. If your niche market is more conservative, why not have a “this day in history” quote, or this day’s famous birthdays.

Once in a while, write something for fun. If you’re in plumbing, write a post from the point of view of your kitchen sink. If you’re in car insurance, write about the projected costs of insuring the batmobile. The point here is that your audience wants quality information, but they also like a little entertainment. Quality blog posts aren’t simply ones that hit all your talking points.

Sure, you should answer questions from clients in depth, but for me, writing a successful blog means taking it easy from all the facts sometimes. Write from your brand tone, but find any opportunity to lighten the mood. Consider:

• A live-blog of a special event or launch of a new product
• Having a Slideshare presentation to accompany your blogs
• Videos of your presentations

Returning again to desire

Obviously you should understand the buyers’ persona of your target audience, and you should be an expert within your niche industry. But is your industry in such great despair that it can’t afford to be fun, visual, stimulating, in other words: human?

Based on the AIDA model, this is the time to create desire. Each post should be answering a question. But, you can interweave the AIDA formula by focusing on desire. If you’re warning the public about mould build-up and air testing in the home, what is the desire? It would be easiest to focus on fear, but not a good idea.

Instead of fear, focus on the desire for clean air – the desire for quality service – the desire to click and be done with it.

Action speaks louder than a thousand words

It doesn’t have to be an action to buy. That’s the common perception of AIDA. It must end with buying. But blog writing isn’t about selling at first. It’s more organic than that.

Instead, make your call-to-action a question that needs your audience to answer. Ask for help, ask for advice, and ask for feedback. If you get any response, you may have opened up your blog to other readers who are associated with the person responding.

Answer their question and they may very well tweet about it (if they’re mentioned in the blog post). This is free advertising. By writing one blog at a thousand words, you have generated a re-post average that makes that post more read.

Successful blog posts need some SEO to get read

The reason why successful blog posts are more often read is because you find out about them. Broadcast your new posts. Read other posts from other locations and think about commenting on them. After a time, people will see your name out there associated with your niche market. They will most likely follow you back to your blog.

Search engine optimization isn’t just a tactic. It’s not a secret formula for Internet business success. It’s essential, though in getting your blogs read. Make sure your custom tags are set. Make sure you follow standard Google guidelines for being a respectable site. Don’t keyword stuff, and don’t link out to too many out-of-market websites.

SEO is a system to make sure that your posts don’t go unnoticed on search engines. That’s about it. So take is seriously otherwise your great blog writing may find no audience.

So I’m going to ask you for questions now

Again I ask, why are you reading my blog post now? Is it because ColdAd is ranked quite high on Google for our niche market? Are you interested in cornering a small piece of your own market? Would you like to know more about creating a successful blog for your business website? Guess what? So would I.

Comment, contact, critique this blog post or anything on our site. We need to hear from you. Not just to improve our own visibility and business, but yours as well. Clever eh? But we practice what we preach.

So my call-to-action to you is to ask me a question. And pass this blog on to anyone who wants more information on how to write a successful blog.