Do you like reading a blog with boring and tedious content? That’s right, many brands have trouble developing articles that spark the interest of their audience for this reason. So if you also want to improve your company’s blog and get ahead, check out these 10 writing tips that we have prepared with your success in mind.
After all, for your Digital Marketing strategies to work well you need to deliver content that generates value in people. And this will never be possible if you can’t create articles that inform and, at the same time, are enjoyable and easy to read… Not as hard as it seems, want to see?
- Content is – and always will be – king
It sounds, and indeed is, a cliché, but it is also the truest statement of all. To be successful in whatever area you are going to write, there is no other shortcut: Your content needs to be quality.
But therein lies the mistake most people make: Thinking that quality content means writing well. Of course this also counts – a lot -, but believe me: Knowing how to write for the right person at the right time is much more important than writing something without grammatical errors, for example.
For this, there is no easy alternative, you need to really know your persona.
And knowing them means not only knowing who they are, but what their plans, doubts, goals, problems, dreams are. Everything. The more, the better.
Once you have done this, then all you have to do is answer the question: What would she like to find on the Internet? So that is what you are going to write.
And you can’t talk about content without thinking about the theme. And it is precisely because they do not really know their audience that companies have trouble getting their themes right. When they do, everything becomes much simpler.
Even because if you wanted to write just for yourself, you would keep a diary and not a blog, right? If you want to write for someone, you must really understand that person.
It is also essential to identify for which stage of the Sales Funnel you are creating. In general, blog posts are made with the Top and Middle of the Funnel in mind. So make sure that people understand the message you want to send at each stage.
Now if you want to have more theme ideas, make use of a simple and effective tip: Ask your audience. That’s right, directly, through social networks and email marketing you can get a huge variety of subjects and themes that your readers want to find out about.
However, more than all this, to make quality content you need to be clear from the start, not only about the objective of your business, but of your blog as a whole and of each text in particular.
- Remember that a blog article is not a scientific article
Yes… It is no use having the best content in the world, mastering a subject like no other and writing better than J.K. Rowling, if you do not understand the basic premise: Writing for the web is different from writing scientific articles or books, for example.
Many people write in their blogs as if they were writing a term paper or a doctoral thesis. And then it doesn’t work, right?
It is obvious, just think that the reader when looking for a scientific article has academic reasons and, therefore, is more likely to read something that is not so attractive. In blogs, this is not how it happens…
The way of speaking changes not only in relation to your persona, since you need to speak in their language, but also thinking that the environment here is different. That is, don’t be afraid to do it differently because these are really different situations.
Extremely technical content doesn’t grab the reader’s attention, much less lead to the engagement (comments, likes, shares) that you want and need for your brand to grow and appear.
One similarity is that web articles also need a beginning, middle, and end. However, here the introduction takes on even more importance, because the reader needs to feel excited to continue reading right away or they can stop right there. And that is not what you want, right?
Another fundamental factor is that in blogs you cannot write as if you were writing a book with pages and pages of continuous text, without interruptions… And that is where we come to the next tip: Scannability.
- Scannability is queen
If content is king, in digital media scannability is queen. This is because on the Internet people consume content in a unique way. In fact, this is also a matter of the times.
Yes, you are not wrong in thinking that years ago readers were used to processing large blocks of running text in newspapers and magazines. And it is true that many print media do this even today, don’t they?
But times have changed. Today we receive a lot of information at the same time and readers want to filter it all quickly. This is why, on the Internet, opting for this older writing model can greatly hinder the performance of your articles.
In general, when accessing a blog, the visitor usually decides within a few seconds whether the content he is looking for is on a certain page or not. For this, people quickly pass their eye and choose to continue reading or open another content. The worst thing is that, in this case, the other content will be your competitor’s.
Use headings (H2, H3)
Using subtitles or intertitles, as they are called on the internet, is the first item to create content thinking about the scannability of a content.
From these headings, each new article should be separated into parts that facilitate the reader’s understanding and interest. So, no rushed and confusing texts, okay?
And let’s be honest, most of the time the reader will not even read your entire article, and it is thanks to the intertitles that he will be able to go where he is really interested in at that moment.
If you managed to answer what he wants, your mission is accomplished. And what better way to do this than to make your text more organized and didactic?
By the way, lists are not loved for nothing, right? They really make it easier for you to structure your content and create headings. Moreover, this format usually makes the audience want to continue reading.
Use relevant images
We are tired of knowing that a picture is worth a thousand words. But in the case of blog articles, images help to break the boredom that a content formed only by letters causes.
This happens because we are very visual and by means of images we are able to separate one subject from another in a more efficient way than by using only intertitles.
Those who look for images for their posts know that it is not always a quick task, in general this task demands time and willingness to find the image that relates to the context. Not to mention the attention to the issue of copyright of the materials you employ in your content.