Making a blog remarkable is hard work. It takes time and effort. But what about when a whole company starts blogging to help the search engine optimization of their website and get the company more social like with us over at The Apprentice Academy.
What happens then?
What about the differences in quality? What about the quality (or otherwise) of the grammar in the blogs produced? Was it really up to the marketing manager to manage people's personal blogs?
Is this a branding issue for the company?
So many questions
and not many answers, especially not from me. As I have a bit of a love hate
relationship with grammar due to my own grandma being very pushy on the subject
(bad pun intended and polarizing I am sure...)
But in the continuation of 5 top
tips it seems we may be onto something.Grammar might be more important than I first thought...
So here are the
rest of the top ten tips on remarkable blogging… with a lovely quote to start off from
the author – Heyo's Mike Sweeney
“Remarkable
blog posts don’t just happen. The myth of the blog post that unexpectedly “goes
viral” is just that…a myth. Behind every blog post that generates robust
traffic, real engagement and quality sharing is a plan that addresses all of
the items (in both blogs ) and even more.”
1. Remarkable blog posts
follow a great headline with an even better opening paragraph.
There are
plenty of things you can try here – some people like asking compelling
questions or making a statement that might challenge common opinion on your
subject, creating controversy in your reader’s mind. Others, like myself,
typically start with a quick and personal story or include a jaw-dropping stat.
Regardless of your technique, this is no different than the lead paragraph of a
newspaper or magazine article; it is what has to draw the reader into the rest
of your piece and capture attention. Your intro paragraph needs to contain a
compelling hook—some reason to keep reading, and should always give the reader
a succinct overview of what you plan to cover in your post.
2. Remarkable blog posts
cannot contain sloppy errors.
The
greatest ideas—and a remarkable post—can be ruined by the really simple stuff:
spelling errors, formatting problems, murky visuals, awkward spacing, or broken
links.
In
carpentry, errors are avoided using a “measure twice, cut once” mindset. In
blogging, I say it’s more like “edit thrice, publish once.”
3. Remarkable blog posts
are optimized for humans…and for search engines.
This,
like many of the other nine points, deserves its own post. If you’ve been
blogging for an extended period of time, and you’re not seeing the benefits of
organic search traffic, then you’re likely doing something wrong from an SEO
standpoint.
Here are a few starting tips:
- Do your keyword research. The Google keyword tool was already awesome, and they just made it even more useful.
- Complete your meta data. At a bare minimum, write a keyword-rich title tag and description tag.
- Tag your images. Be certain to address the image file name, alt text, and title tag – all should include target keywords.
- Find opportunities to interlink. Make it a practice to link to previous posts on your blog.
- Link to outside sources. This will not only boost SEO benefits, but it creates friendly fellow- blogger relationships.
4. Remarkable blog posts
are easily shareable.
Just
today, I checked out a prospective client’s blog, and when I got there, I was
pleasantly surprised at the volume of content. Then came the cringe-worthy
moment…all that content, and so difficult to share. No LinkedIn sharing option.
The Tweet button led to a dead end. And there was no easy way to forward along
via email.
Creating remarkable
blog posts is hard. Sharing them should not be. Allison Novak’s 7 Tips for Social Sharing will get you started down
the right path.
5. Remarkable blog posts
include a call to action.
If you’ve
followed these steps and created a remarkable blog post, you now have a captive
audience. They may want to move on to something else, but at least give them an
opportunity to hang out and get more involved with what you’re doing.
Keep your
calls to action short and simple. Some might offer the reader more information,
like “Read these related blog posts.” Others might be calls for engagement,
like “Anything to add? What else makes for a remarkable blog post? Share in the
comments.” Another option is to offer a different piece of content that allows
the reader to delve deeper into the blog post topic, like “Want more blogging
tips? Download our ultimate guide to creating remarkable blog posts.” All will
create an increased level of audience engagement.
So to
answer the question posed by The Apprentice Academy's new blogging mission - perhaps the
most important thing really is quality and we need to train our TAA staff and
non training digital people, who may not love writing - or blogging - to get
them to start to love editing.
The same
has to be done for our
new digital apprentices - which ironically it is - in the course.
Looks
like my grandma was right. Which, to be fair, she was about a lot of other
things.
So is that sometimes (and this is where the irony must stop) "it's not what you say,
but how you say it."
What do you think?
More importantly, would you like to know more about how our
new digital apprentices who will help your company (if you are based in
Manchester and are part of a company of more than 5 people) get on the most out of social media?
Then do be in touch with The
Apprentice Academy we would love to help you recruit a digital Apprentice.
How's that for a call to action ;)
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