Revive your blogging technique in 5 easy steps…

Whether for your business, or as a personal passion, apply these easy techniques and you’ll find it flows faster- and more importantly – lands better with your audience. Happy Blogging!

Blogging is a key part of your content marketing strategy and when done right can deliver great results for your business. It can help to:

· Increase in your social media following

· Enhance your SEO score

· Drive traffic to your website

· Establish authority and creditability for your brand

However, as with any effective piece of communication online, you need to know exactly who you are trying to reach. Drill your existing customer insights and pinpoint your target audience. This way you are clear on who you are targeting and what you want to say to them. Once you have established audience, and drawn out your broad content ideas, here are a few basic rules to follow:

1. Make your blog reader-friendly. People view content differently online: important to keep text uncluttered and easy to navigate. Opening paragraphs with larger fonts and fewer characters per line make it easier for the viewer to read. Equally, short sentences and short paragraphs work best so consider lists and bullets. Try free ‘online-friendliness’ writing tools such as Grammarly ( www.grammarly.com) and Hemingway ( http://www.hemingwayapp.com) to double-check that your blog is easy to read and well-written.

2. Use plain English. It’s so important to talk the way you normally talk! Overly formal language will jar with people and put them off reading your blog. When reviewing the final draft, do a sense check to make sure you are using the clearest language to express yourself. For those involved in more technical industries, it’s always best to avoid any industry-specific jargon.

3. Headlines and Layout. Create attention-grabbing headlines! You only have a few seconds online to catch people’s attention so your headline has to work hard for you. The headline will impact whether people will click into the blog. According to Kissmetrics, the optimal length of a headline is between 6-8 words. Try Hubspot’s free headline and topic generator ( http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator) for inspiration and ideas.

4. Give something back. The most effective content performs one of three key functions: iteducates, informs or entertains. Does your blog do any of these? Are you giving something back to your readers, either in the form of advice, ideas or useful information? Simple ideas include sharing any tips or tricks to help people use your product or service. If you are offering an online service or software then free trials can work really well. The key is to offer something that will give value to your customers.

5. Draw readers in with an image. According to a recent Xerox study, coloured visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. On social media, posts that contain at least one image get shared more on Facebook and Twitter than those that don’t. With this in mind, make sure your blog contains at least one optimized, relevant image. You can use your own promotional photography or product shots, or for something more abstract try one of the free image sites such as Canva ( www.canva.com). With all images – whether sourced online or taken on site – make sure you secure copyright permission or permission from customers if they feature in the photos.

Whether for your business, or as a personal passion, apply these easy techniques and you’ll find it flows faster- and more importantly – lands better with your audience. Happy Blogging!