You can invest a lot of money and time into building traffic to your website, but if you have lousy content, visitors will just leave and never come back. So despite all the fancy search engine optimization tools, the heart of a good website is still top quality content. Here are some tips on writing compelling blog posts and articles.
Write well, and write regularly
Research on your topics and give valuable information—not just a bunch of fluffy adjectives and marketing hype on your product, but facts and tips that people really need and want to know. And don’t post once in a blue moon. I’ve seen a lot of really great blogs and went out of my way to bookmark them, but got frustrated when weeks would pass until the next post. If you’re too busy to post every day, then set aside a whole weekend for a writing marathon and then get blogging software that allows you to schedule posts and upload them automatically at the same time each day.
Invite guest bloggers
Invite experts or bloggers with a following to write a post on a topic they know well. Or, ask if you can interview them and then publish the Q&A. They will probably promote their guesting on their own blog, and share a link to your website—automatically generating traffic while building the credibility of your content.
Use multimedia
Slide shows, videos and visual aids help keep the content interesting and dynamic. Just please, for the love of God, don’t cue music that plays automatically whenever someone visits your website. We don’t want your personal soundtrack. We want content that’s relevant to us.
Build rapport with your visitors
Reply to comments, or send a friendly email message welcoming each new member to the community. Email newsletters can help sustain the rapport and also showcase new or popular content. And to get to know your audience, conduct surveys and track and analyze your statistics to see what they searched for and what articles they read.
Encourage reader participation
People like talking about themselves! Invite people to comment on a post by throwing a question at the end of a blog post. Even something as simple as, ‘Has this ever happened to you? Share your story!’ can get the conversation going. Running simple raffles or contests can also get the lurkers to speak up. For example, if you have a cooking blog or website, ask people to send in their recipes, and award a free cookbook or cookware to a randomly picked entry. It’s a great way to generate content, too!
Photo from prlog.org