We all know having a blog is important to your website and SEO rankings. But what happens when your content becomes out of date or irrelevant?
When you work with an SEO agency, they can help develop new and innovative topics on a regular basis. But if you’re trying to come up with some new ideas, here are a few original concepts to incorporate with blog content that you are developing internally.
- Alternate approaches to articles
You can’t always write straight paragraphs of facts and figures. No one will want to read 1000 words without any variation. It’s an eyesore, and from first glance, it looks boring. To spice up your content, here are three things you can try:
- Interviews-Get first-hand accounts from users of your products.
- The New and Exciting- stay ahead of the newest developments in your field rather than rehashing topics that have already been discussed
- Start a series-Keep your audience engaged by enticing them with a follow-up article related to the same subject
By approaching content differently, you will make you readers want to return to the blog to see what new content you have to offer. If you keep writing in the same style, it’s highly unlikely you will maintain your audience numbers for very long.
- Use lists
When you use bullet points or numbered lists in an article, you break up the content in a way that is easier to read, and also point out the highlights of the article itself or the specific section you are trying to highlight.
Don’t turn bullet points into paragraphs, either. That defeats the simplicity of the bullet point.
The “rule of three” is another key guideline for both public speaking and writing. People are able to remember things in groups of three, so it’s good not to extend lists beyond that.
- Graphics are okay, but don’t make them the center point of the article.
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and it very well might be. But when adding graphics to blog articles, there are two things to keep in mind:
- Is the graphic relevant to the content? Adding images just for the sake of adding images makes no sense. Everything you put on the page should be relevant and have a purpose. If that picture is going to be worth its value of 1000 words, it better be an exact match to the text written alongside it.
- The text needs to speak first. If all your audience can focus on are the graphics, the text loses all its value, and that is the complete opposite of what should happen with a blogpost.
- Connect with your audience and anticipate their questions.
To choose the best content for your readers, you need to create an audience profile. The best way to do so is by answering these basic questions:
- Who will be reading your content?
- What do they already know?
- What do they need to know?
- How can you keep them reading your content?
Writing blog content may seem like a one-way conversation, where you post articles and do not receive any feedback from your audience, but the truth is, if your content does its job, your audience will respond. They won’t necessarily write comments, but they will read other pages or articles on your websites, and hopefully complete the conversion, whether it’s downloading an app or completing a sale.
Also in terms of using keywords, make sure you find the right keywords to target to help boost your position in search results. When SEO agencies come up with topics for articles, they look at which keywords are most popular and target them throughout the content. With the right balance of keywords, your article can easily appear on the first page of the search engine results pages.
- Remember to put quality over quantity.
The most important part of any blog article is the quality of the writing. Whether it’s your first blog article or your 15th, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation should always be perfect. Before submitting any content, always have a second person double-check it. Spell check is not always reliable, and no writer is perfect.
There’s a direct correlation between the quality of a company’s writing and the way the audience will perceive the company. If the quality of the writing is lacking, it will reflect negatively on the company as a whole. Even if your article ends up being 500 words instead of 1000 words, if the writing is better, then you will not lose anything by having a shorter article.
Blog writing is not a dying art. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Your SEO score can be boosted by an active, engaging blog. Blogs can always be relevant, reach new audiences, and even re-energize old customers that were once dormant. It’s up to you to keep the content fresh and find new ways to increase your readership, but once you do, the content will speak for itself.
