Your Blog Content, The Written Kind

This is a guest post from Peggy Baron:

It’s kind of a no-brainer, but in order to get all SEO-ey on your blog content, you’ve first got to have content. I mean, you can’t put traffic and conversion tactics to work if you don’t have any material on your blog to work with, right?

Now I know you know there are different ways to deliver your content – the written word, videos, podcasts, big infographics, etc. – and those are all good.

But let’s go a little deeper here with one of these methods; the written kind, because that’s the one you’ll probably post most often.

To begin with, you have choices as to who actually does the content writing:

• you
• guest poster – excellent way to have others add their expertise and send their traffic
• paid blogger – when you get big, you can hire a team of bloggers
• you
• PLR – rewrite it for maximum advantage
• ghostwriter – find one that knows your topic and doesn’t charge too much
• you
• EzineArticles – Tip: You can’t change the article you use from them but you can add an intro before and a conclusion after the article with your keywords.

If you’re like the majority of bloggers, it will most likely be you doing the writing. Here’s a logical process that can help you get maximum bang for your efforts:

1. Start with the purpose of your post by deciding what end action you want your reader to take.

The action you want them to take might be to:

• buy your product
• buy an affiliate product
• opt-in for something (to build your list)
• download a free report (that has your product links or affiliate links in it)
• read another post (internal linking)
• tweet, like, 1+, etc. (go viral and get your brand everywhere)
• other

2. Now decide which form you want your post to take while keeping your end action in mind:

• pillar post with lots of meat that others will link to
• pre-sell a product or affiliate product
• case study to show your results or another’s results
• curated news regarding the latest trends in your industry
• newsy update of what you’ve been working on
• bulleted list of tips, mistakes or steps and yes, these still work
• rant about what’s wrong and what’s a better alternative
• other

Are you wondering if your blog content should be short? Long? Lots of graphics or screenshots? Quotes? These questions usually work themselves out as you write the post. Make it just as long as it needs to be and add graphics sparingly where they seem to make the most sense.

Tip: You can find quotes at www.quotegarden.com

3. Start with an outline. Yes, it’s only a blog post and not an epic novel, but you want it to make sense; have a beginning, middle and end, with the end already predetermined by you (see #1 above). That way it doesn’t wander all over the place and cause your reader to wander right out of there before they even get to the end.

The big plus is that outlining really helps you get your article written faster! Once you figure out what information you want to impart, it’s a matter of filling in the blanks.

In case you’re wondering, I did start with an outline of sorts for this post. 🙂

Tip: What makes writing your posts even easier is to use an Easy Article Starter. It’s better than an outline.

4.  Write the post paying close attention to creating a compelling title. Be sure to add your keywords in the title and body. The introduction is where you capture your readers’ attention so this is not the time to be boring. You can introduce and illustrate the problem you’re going to be talking about in the body.

The conclusion is important too, because you’re going to lead them to your call to action – the one you came up with in the beginning, the reason why you’re even writing the blog post.

5. Add graphics, internal links, affiliate links, etc. Don’t be shy! It’s perfectly okay to add affiliate links to an informative post. It’s very natural to put them in when you’re explaining how to do something. You’re being helpful and letting your readers know where to go, via your affiliate link, if they want to get further information.

6. Promote the heck out of it via your email list and social media, and perhaps do some blog commenting on blogs that use ComLuv to get eyeballs over to your blog. Heck, you can even call your mother and let her know too. If she’s like mine, she won’t really understand but she’ll be glad you’re doing “work” of some sort.

7. Repurpose your blog content. There are so many ways to do this, so I’ll just mention a few:

• Put all your blog posts together on a similar topic and turn them into a report or ebook.
• Post it in the Articles sub-forum on the Warrior Forum.
• Rework it and put in EzineArticles directory.
• Expand on it and make it part of a membership program.
• Send it to one of your lists in the form of an email.
• Do a PowerPoint to go with it and turn it into a video.

The more content you have on your site, the more you can work the SEO magic and get the traffic you need. With more traffic you can begin to make the sales and affiliate sales you’ve been wanting. Now go forth and write! 🙂

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Peggy Baron has been helping others online with their content needs since 2008. When she’s not busy embarrassing her teenagers in front of their friends, she’s writing high quality content at allstarplr.com and most recently her innovative Easy Article Starters which help bloggers get unique posts done quickly and with a lot less pain.