10 Blogging Tips To Make Your Posts Sparkle & Shine!

Creating great content is crucial to building an engaged, loyal audience. I'm sure you're aware of, which is why you're here reading this; getting your blog post just right isn't easy. Creating captivating content is the heart of any successful blog. Let me break down the anatomy of a compelling post to keep your audience reading, with these ten blogging tips.

1. Fabricating An Idea

All posts start with an idea, from there ideas start branching off, creating a strong foundation to build upon. Ask yourself these questions prior to making your final decision.

Is my topic distinctive to my niche?

Is my topic tailored to benefit the needs of my specific audience?

Your answer should be "Yes" to both. Creating relevant, sought after content for your specific audience helps make your post less likely to be over shadowed by competitive articles.

2. Titles Are Your Bread & Butter

The title of a post will do one of two things; it identifies and addresses your audience drawing the reader in, or the reader decides to leave. Relevant, short, and to the point creates a great title.

Leave out unnecessary hard technical words. Otherwise, your reader may become confused and frustrated, or worse, even abandon ship. SEO titles should be no longer than 65 characters for the purpose of SEO optimization. Any longer than 65 characters and you risk the possibility of the title displaying improperly in the search engine results (in other words, it's getting cut off).

Keyword stuffing is another thing to avoid. It's important to remember that your readers take priority first and yes, over SEO optimization.

Don't create content for SEO optimization, create it for the purpose and benefit of your audience. Use natural keywords to tell your reader what information your post has and whether it's discussing a benefit or solution to their need(s).

As you start laying out your content, make sure that you reference your title to continue the momentum from your title.

3. Your Introduction Is The Main Attraction

Like with the title, your introduction should help emphasize to your reader that, yes, they made a good choice by choosing your blog and be reassuring so they continue reading.

The first two sentences of your introduction should help support your title, be simple and super easy to read.

Your introduction should give the reader a crystal clear picture on what your post has to offer. Do this by summarizing and outlining useful info that's found in your post. In other words, state your conclusion first.

Incorporating keywords in your introduction is important and highly recommended to do earlier in your post.

A strong word of warning, don't over stuffing keywords into the intro. Use relevant keywords in the best interest of your readers, not SEO optimization. You're starting a blog to spread your knowledge so your readers can benefit from it.

4. Dissect Posts With Subheadings

It's common for readers to skim an article. The reason for reading your article is to find the answer(s) to a problem, make your article easy to scan by highlighting your key points. Write reader-friendly content, breaking up paragraphs to create shorter, more readable sections using subheadings, numbers, bullets and visuals (I'll be covering visuals shortly).

It's best practice to keep subheadings spaced with two to six paragraphs. Subheadings help introduce a bit white space to help rest your readers eyes.

5. Size Does Matter, But So Does Quality

Depending on the topic and points being conveyed, determines the length of your content. Having a lengthy post is frowned upon because it can cause the reader to lose interest. However, creating super short content is not the answer to the problem either. If you're not satisfying the reader, what the point?

It comes down to quality and substance contained in your post and how successful it makes reader engagement.

It's unacceptable to leave you without producing some kind of number, so I'll give you a researched answer to this common question. Neil Patel conducted a virality experiment on QuickSprout to find that a post containing on average, 1500+ words received higher amount of shares on Twitter and Facebook , than post containing -1500 words. So does this tell us? It's telling us that search engines such as Google, take social signals (from social media) into account when ranking sites.

The post body should help expand the same emotion used in the title, continuing with the same momentum throughout the body of the post.

6. Research, Research, Research, & Research Some More!

Research is essential to writing a great informative piece since you're reflecting on and incorporating researched information back into your post. Whether a seasoned or novice blogger, you still need to do quality research.

Take advantage by linking to other relevant posts in the article you are writing. This encourages your readers to explore your site, increase your user-retention rate, keep them returning & recommending.

Include a list of your references is good practice which helps build your credibility.

External linking gives due credit, highlighting other experts on the topic helping you prove that you took time, to thoroughly research your topic to give your readers the best value possible. Using links helps your reader get a better understand providing them with valuable information. Make sure to download my Research Cheat Sheet!

7. Visuals-You Know The Saying, "The Eyes Are The Windows To The Soul"

Something important to keep in mind when incorporating visuals into your post is the main photo. The main photo is the first photo seen and a major influence to engaging your readers.

What happens if your topic only requires one photo? Aim for one eye-catching photo. Avoid using stock photos if possible. If you have to, leave as a last resort. Stock photos are a no-no, they're generic, which means that other bloggers could have used them.

High-quality original photos are the best way to go because they are original to your content and blog.

The use of visuals are a good way to help break-up sea of content, which helps in giving the reader a chance to rest. Other awesome visuals to include: videos, info-graphics, downloadable printable, and anything else that is creative, relevant, and appealing.

8. The 3 C's: Conclusion , Climax, & Call-To-Action

Now we have the meat & potatoes of your post. Next, you want to start winding down, drawing your post to a conclusion. Re-summarize your key points and end with a climax and realistically supports the main point of your article.

Your conclusion should help call your reader to action. It's crucial that your call to action is visible, attractive, actionable, and promises value in advance to make sure you're grabbing your readers attention and encouraging them to follow through.

Another important part of the call to action is making sure that you're informing your reader, telling them what's going to happen when they click.

9. Enticing Your Audience With Social Elements

Having a strategy in place to encourage your reader engagement is important. At the end of your post, ask your readers an interesting question relevant to your article. This invites your readers to spark up conversation helping develop a community within your blog. Most successful blogs with active close-knit communities, obtained this success by encouraging reader engagement through commenting.

Warmly invite your readers in saying, "come on in, make yourself at home, stay awhile."

10. Always Make Sure To Proof-Read

Make a point of reviewing and editing what you wrote prior to hitting the post button! Take time and effort to fix any errors you have (you want to gain credibility , not lose it).

I find it's best to take a break immediately finishing a post. This gives me time to rest my eyes so I'm able to proof-reading with a clear mind.

Does your post set a certain tone? Does your tone sound like a normal conversation with a friend? In other words, does the tone come across human and not robotic? If not, it should. Using tone consistency in every post you write is important, this is something that your readers come to expect. Never speak at your audience, speak to them, involve them in the conversation.

What This All Boils Down To

Starting as a new blogger creating your first post, can be a daunting experience which causes you to second guess yourself. You get blinded by the endless amount of articles on post etiquette. Use this knowledge available to you as a guide, don't let it hold you back from who you are. Always remember there's no "blogging laws" you have to conform or abide to. Be a rebel, break some of those "blogging rules". Most importantly, do what works best for you. Trying to stay within the "rules" ends up causing frustration, heartache and not reaching your goals and dreams. Don't sell your soul.

Time to give your brain a rest. Don't forget to download this awesome printable 10 Steps To Make Your Blog Post Sparkle & Shine that I enjoyed creating just for you! Print this nifty cheat sheet and place it in your blog planner for safe keeping. If you have any issues, please don't hesitate to contact me here>> through my contact page or email me at mombietribe@thewalkingmombie.com. I hope you found the information you came looking for and find it helpful in your blogging journey! Keep an eye out for more blogging tips coming soon!

I would love to hear any of your thoughts, suggestions, feedback, did I miss something? Let me know if you disagree for goodness sake!

#bloggingtips #contentmarketing #blogging #bloggingbasics #infographic #proofread #calltoaction #conclusion #writingtips #blogwritingtips #blogphotos #stockphotos #badstockphotos #bloggingtipsandtricks #blogging101 #newmomblogs #newblogs #blogpost #howtowriteablogpost #blogpostformat #writingablogpost #10bloggingtips #top10bloggingtips #marketingblog #bloggingformoney