When I visited our Lab in Lagos in February, I engaged in a serious discussion with some digital markers as they auditioned to join our team. Btw, yes we are still searching for a competent digital marketer! My major approach for the audition was to find out how skilled each one was in their digital marketing strategies. So I asked them to tell me 10 things they must consider when writing an online blog.
To my suprise, so many crucial tips were not mentioned. I heard things like the blog must be catchy, enticing, interesting and so on. Yes these are important but also relative. We release blogs weekly and have come to realise that there are must-includes and here is how to write a blog if you want to build your project through low or no-cost digital marketing strategies.
Why blogging as a digital marketing strategy?
Written content on your website generates traffic to the website. Think about it like your writen content is the attraction on a driveway. People are driving and their attention is caught by the content. They either stop, park and dedicate their attention or they stretch their necks out of the car, still trying to drive without causing an accident. You want them to stop, right? Because the chances are that they would look for more and maybe even open their wallets.
If not, it is also ok that they stuck their necks out in the first place. Maybe some other day, when they are looking for something, they would remember you and come back. Good prepared written content is key for any website and that is why I want to share practical tips on how to write a blog post.
Why I picked up this topic – not all blogs are equal.
We have had the experience that certain blogs push people searching for specific information to our website. We even have one blog that ranks really high on Google search. All this was done without investing one Naira into digital marketing. But since not all our blogs generate the same amount of traffic, I decided to examine those that do generate the most traffic to our website, so as to understand why they do so. So here are some key tips on how to write a blog that would truly be your traffic engine and increase your sales. so it i easy to learn how to write a blog.
Tip 1: Know your target audience
This might sound very logical but believe me, it is not as simple as you might think. If your business or venture or project is not clearly defined to know who you want to target, it is almost impossible to know who you should write for. Knowing who you are speaking to with your blog would help you shape how you write, what language you use, what style, what pictures, what headings and so on. If you want to understand how to know who your target audience is, make sure to enrol for our 6 key program where you learn how to build your business strategy. We have a special tutorial in the program where I teach about customer profile and target audiences.
Tip 2: Keep the length readable
Now this is where I personally struggle because, sometimes, what I have to share is very lengthy. But the truth is, most of our target audience read our content using their phone. See why it is important to know that target audience? Now we know that they read it on their phone. How do we know that? There are tools like Google analytics that can help you find these simple facts and statistics.
Since the articles are read on phones, it has to be short, because it is extremely challenging to read a very long piece on the phone. We advise between 450 to 900 characters per blog article. If the topic demands very long text, then break it down into parts and release them in the subsequent weeks as follow up. This strategy is actually extremely good and leads me to tip number 3 which explains why!
Tip 3: Interlink and backlink within articles.
Actually, this is a great tip that you will find only in paid training. Interlinking within your website is crucial for the search engine and it helps to optimise the results you will get on each search engine. Backlinking and external links to other websites is a must include! The best case would be if another site adds links to your site as well. So find ways to integrate good and useful links. A quick tip here also is to highlight the links so that it is obvious that it is a link. See my pink colored text? Those are links! Make sure to have about 4 to 6 links in one blog.
Tip 4: Let the flow be authentic and useful to the reader.
Adding interlinks and links, special titles etc, just to fulfil a great SEO would make search engines fine you when they find out. How would they find out? If the content is useless to the target audience, the target audience would not spend 15 seconds on the page. So if over 80% leave your page after 15 to 20 seconds, but the content on the page shows the need to read for at least 50 seconds, search engine crawlers would figure this out and conclude that the content is irrelevant to the target audience, therefore it would not be pushed out in any future search.
A quick wrap up – target audience, links, short writeup.
Know who your target audience is so that you can design the content to suit them. Find useful links and external links to integrate. Keep the whole writeup short, precise and also useful. Here is a tutorial on how to write or pitch content to get more turnout. So there are more tips and tricks here. Stay connected to Joadre through our platforms. My instagram page gives you daily updates. My newsletter gives you all in one place. Thank you so much for reading till the end. Expect the next parts of this blog where I would talk about pictures, Alt text labelling, title and keywords.
Cheers,
Joana