You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect blog post. You’re super proud of what you’ve written and can’t wait to share it with the world. You just know it’s going to be an epic blog post that will drive traffic and convert into paying customers.
You hit publish, share it across all your social channels and then remember you forgot to include a call to action, or you didn’t place it in the right category, and you’ve missed the tags – D’oh!
Your masterpiece has fallen into the Ether and all you hear is Crickets!
How can you stop this from happening again? Read on my friend and I will show you (free downloads also available).
It’s all in the headline
Headlines carry so much weight when it comes to Search Engines. Have you researched to see what’s already out there and how you can make yours better and more appealing?
Think emotion – words that will capture the attention of the readers (and keep them reading).
Example: how to, tips, fast, easy – including these will entice the reader that you’re going to solve their problem.
There are lots of tools out there to help you. I use these 2 all the time
https://headlines.sharethrough.com/
https://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer
Action: try it now with an existing post & see how you can improve
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What’s the purpose of the post? Think A.I.D.A
Are you trying to attract Attention to your post?
Is it all about generating Interest in your services/products?
Does it leave the reader with a Desire to know more?
Have you included a clear call to Action?
Example: Host a challenge (Attention), start a debate or discussion post (Interest), how-to guides (Desire), clear CTA post (Action)
Action: review your latest blog post – does it include any of the above? If not, how can you re-write it?
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Where does it belong?
You should make your content as easy to find for your reader as possible. Using categories and tags is a an ideal way of doing this, but think about the user experience. Is the category title logical? Is it relevant to the post? Have you used the right tags?
Action: take a look at the categories on your blog, do they make sense to the user?
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What’s the hook?
In your opening paragraph have you clearly laid out what the post is about? I follow the S.P.I.N method, which is actually a selling technique I was taught back in the day but it works great for the blogging world too.
Situation – what is the current situation the reader find themselves in? For example with this post it’s aimed at remembering everything you need before you hit publish and I’ve made that clear in the opening.
Problem – have you highlighted a common problem?
Implication – what does that mean to the reader? Do they recognise that problem themselves?
Need pay-off – What do they need to resolve the problem?
Action: re-read your opening paragraphs – do they clearly layout the problem, the implications and how you can help them?
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“Pursue done, get pretty later” Amy Porterfield
Love this piece of advice from online marketing guru, Amy Porterfield. So many times I work with businesses that won’t publish unless it’s got all the spangly, sparkly bits in place. Yes of course it’s important to have the right (royalty free) images that match your content, but don’t hold off publishing it just because you can’t find the right picture. You can always go back and add it in later.
Some great resources for royalty free images are;
Action: remember to add alt-tags to your images to help with SEO. Have you credited the source (if applicable)?
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Check SEO
Blogging, content creation and SEO all go hand in hand so you need to have even just a basic understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes.
Have you researched and used keywords throughout your post?
Action: Are the URLs short with your slug containing the keyword? Are meta tags present? (Check title, description, alt-tag for images, and keywords.)
- Can the content be shared?
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That’s a lot to take in right? Worry not my friend, I’ve put together a handy, simple Blog Checklist that covers all of the above and more. You can download it here >>>> Blog Checklist
Of course, the world of blogging is ever evolving and there’s no way to teach all of this in a single blog post which is why I offer 1-2-1 blog coaching. If you’d like to know more just watch this short video where I explain all the benefits https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=WbpsYfKbmpM
If you’d like more information or a free review of your existing blog, use the contact form below to get in touch[gravityform id=”1″ title=”true” description=”true”]