Thursday, November 19, 2009

How To Make Sure Your Blog Posts Get Read; 4 Suggestions

I have recently read a couple of excellent books. One is Content Rich by Jon Wuebben and the other is The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert Bly. They have helped me think about blogging from the point of view of copywriting. This is a good strategy with any blog that you want to increase your readership for but, it is especially important for a business blog that is designed to generate traffic to your website. Using good copywriting techniques makes a big difference in blogging results.


Does the title grab attention?
Like the envelop and headline of a direct mail letter, the headline in a news article or, the subject line of an email, the title is one of the most important aspects of your blog article. Make sure that it grabs attention. People are interested in how to’s, lists of things that will bring a known benefit and, promises of knowledge that will be learned. Early on in my blogging I was more concerned about literary concerns and I have to admit that I did not grab as many readers as I could have. I am even considering changing the titles of some of my blog posts and trying them over again. I will probably do that as I have the time and I will be happy to report back my findings. Therefore, I suggest that you either think of a great title and write to it or, write an article without a title and after it is finished spend some time with the title. Let me repeat; use titles that grab!


Do not make it too long!
I try to hold my blog posts at or about five hundred (500) words. Busy people want to be able to glean information quickly. I know for a fact that when I see a blog post that is long I do not read it all unless it is something that I have to know about. However, I will read blogs of five hundred words or less much more often.


Make it keyword rich!
If you want to receive the benefit of the search engines make sure that you are using words and phrases that have large search engine results. You can become aware of these keywords from sources like wordtracker.com or, you can use the program I have called Traffic Travis. This is a program that sits on your hard drive and will give you results on popular keywords. It also gives a large variety of SEO benefits, but it is worth the price; FREE…smile. Actually, I have paid for a version that gives a little more bang but either way it is a great resource and it will help you with keywords. Don’t use them just because they are keywords…use them as they fit your subject.


Make them specific!
The more valuable information you can pack into a post the better. You don’t have to go on and on but, it is important that you are able to offer valuable information. It does not have to be original information, there is nothing new under the sun, but, if you remind people of things or state something in a new and unique way, or give a different perspective than most you will have gone a long long way down the road to great content, and that will lead to more readers.

I would appreciate any comments and observations so feel free to interact!

9 comments:

  1. Your title made me read your post. I struggle with getting readers and ones that will interact with me. I have been tracking with ones get more readers and I am often suprised that the ones that get more readers are not my best posts. I will use your information to see if it is the title or length of the post.

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  2. Hey Joe - you are very cool! I read this right away and I am supposed to be turning off my pc and heading to bed. Liked the delivery, short to the point and giving good tips. You are very cool :-) thanks. s

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  4. Yep great article Joe, I am halfway through a blog article and I am going to change the title to "How to .... and adjust the rest of the article according to your guidelines thanks a lot
    Roy

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  5. The title got me here! The easy-to-read kept me going :)

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  6. Thank you very much Joe for this post full of great tips !

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  7. Joe-Exellent article. I just started writing a blog on entrepreneurship at www.tecaclub.com and will take your advice.

    Go Buckeyes.

    Kip Marlow
    The Entrepeneurs Club of America
    www.tecaclub.com

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  8. Hi Kip,
    Just took a lot at the article and video on your blog. Very Informative. That is what is important...giving people information they can use and, relating to the self doubt we all have is comforting.

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  9. Hi Joe,

    Thanks for the great post. I agree wholeheartedly: Intro to Journalism skills all the way!

    Thanks,
    Suzanne

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