5 Action Steps to Get Your Blog Read and Remembered

How Blogs Get Lost

If you’ve been writing a blog and not getting traction, it’s no wonder. Last year over 500 million blog posts appeared online.

You have competition for attention.

And the competition is growing. The number of bloggers in the USA is expected to grow to 31.7 million in 2020.

But don’t despair. 57% of marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging and 53% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority. So gaining traction and customers is possible with blogging.

You can increase your blogging success. You may end up writing less but getting better results. Research, focus, and visuals all help readers land on your page and stay there.

Research Information

Your words may be cool, but information educates your readers. To gain attention in today's’ crowded blogging world, helping your readers with sound facts to back up your words builds authority for your brand.

Offer original information. You need to stand out from the others. Googling a keyword or parroting tips from top posts is not new information. Your reader has probably gone to one of those top posts already.

Delve deep into your topic and subtopics. If you are used to writing a daily blog in a couple of hours, you won’t have time to go deep. Slow down. Gather facts. Then use those facts to expand your blog post.

Start digging into data about your industry. From financial markets at Morningstar to internet use at Pew Research Center Internet Studies to gaming information at Think Gaming go beyond a Google search and dig into information about your industry.

PRO TIP: Help your blog reader learn more by including links to relevant information in the body of your text.

Expand Beyond Words

Visuals like images, charts, videos, and simple, clear infographics help your reader visualize and retain information.

[Optimonster](https://optinmonster.com/blogging-statistics said, “Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.” If you are not using visuals, you are doing your words a disservice.

And they add, “Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.”

Find arresting photos at free sites like Pexels and Unsplash by entering a topic and searching through hundreds of images. Find images that illustrate the topic of your blog. Adding an image or multiple images visually cements your topic in your reader’s mind.

Use templates at Canva to create simple yet visually stimulating infographics to support the idea of your blog post. Canva makes creating infographics easy. They supply templates, you fill in the information.

Find video clips of influencers in your field. YouTube simple editing tool makes it easy to get the exact clip you need. It doesn’t need to be long, 15 to 30 seconds of an influencer echoing your point is validation for your blog.

Or, make your own short video, speaking to the topic of your blog. You reinforce your point and build brand recognition at the same time. Or, create a short tutorial on a product or how to use your service and add it to your blog.

Visuals connect with readers and help them remember your brand.

Edit Your Post

Once you’ve written your blog, don’t dash to post it. Make sure your sentences are easy to read. Keep them short. Small bits of information are easier to retain. Your reader won’t remember the information in a lengthy sentence.

It’s easy to miss grammar in the flow of writing. Edit for grammar and spelling. Every error is like a discount in your reader’s mind that you aren’t an expert. And worse, if you don’t care about the details of your blog, why would you care about them as a customer?

Format your post with short paragraphs and subheadings to break up the text. You’ll make your content easy to skim. Your reader can understand your topic at a glance and then go to the part that speaks to them.

Use an editing tool like ProWritingAid to catch errors, help with syntax, avoid cliches, and tighten your language so your content doesn’t sound like a fluff piece.

Give Your Blog Post the Time It Deserves

Instead of dashing off as many posts as possible because “content is king,” rethink how to engage your readers with posts that speak to their needs. Offer information based on facts that illustrates how you solve a problem.

If research, creating visuals, and editing sound like they take time, they do. If you want your blogging to get attention, create repeat readers, and create more income, focus on making each point count.

Take the time to research information that supports your topic. Format data into bullet lists and infographics to make it easy to understand and remember. Edit to make your text crisp and readable. Add visuals to make your ideas pop.

When you take time to create a blog post that delivers, your readers will respond to your solid, informative content. The average blog takes over three hours to create, but you make each post more dynamic by spending more time.

Jeremy Moser, cofounder of uSERP, said in a recent SEJ article,

...bloggers spending 6+ hours per post are 38% more likely to report stronger results.

Stronger results mean more readers who buy-in to your concept.

Freshen Old Posts

Don’t let old posts languish. Evergreen content can become outdated—in weeks. Adding new information, embellishing with infographics or charts, and reformatting with bullet points will make your posts new. Search engines like Google notice fresh information and present that information as results for queries.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, refreshing old content will boost your entire blogging efforts as you bring posts to the attention of search engines. Search engines focus on new content. Even though a post you wrote a year ago is one of your best pieces, giving it a facelift will get it more attention.

Rather than writing a new blog post on the same theme or topic, give some effort to updating your old posts. Use Google Analytics to find the posts with the most visitors. Those are the posts that resonate with readers. Give them a boost with updated information.

Differentiate Your Blog

Your blog represents your brand. As you prepare to write a new blog consider how you will make your brand stand out from your competitors. Always tie the information in your blog to how it relates to your reader. Help your reader make better decisions.

Pay attention to your competitors, then offer a unique perspective on your topic. Back it up with information. Tie it to your reader’s pain point or problem. These activities raise the level of your post, making it quality information.

Focus on quality elements for continued blogging success:

• clear and easy for users to understand
• contains logical and persuasive arguments
• supported by cohesive, meaningful visuals

When you aim for quality over just content, you’ll launch your path to blogging success.

Take your writing to the next level: