Perfect is a subjective term, but anyone can write an epic blog post, right?
Yes, anyone. All you need is to know the elements of a perfect blog post and get to work. If you want to pen down pure gold content, you can. Many times, writing an impactful post is nothing but deep research that spans a few hours and across different mediums, reorganization of ideas and several editorial runs.
Now, this is something that anyone can do, but then, not everyone will. Content creation is a demanding process, and those who relentlessly go through it, get rewarded in the end. You want to find a way to stay productive as a content creator. One way of doing that is knowing exactly what element goes into a great blog post.
Let’s examine a few elements of a perfect blog post.
1: Narrow Down to the Main Keyword
A perfect blog post is one that users can find online, when querying search engines. To have your post show up, you need to optimize it for this particular search query. SEO starts with keyword research. Take time to find the right keyword for your post.
The right keyword:
- Has low competition
- Is highly relevant to your general blogging niche
- Has low to medium search volume (500-5000 monthly search volume)
- Is evergreen
- Meets users search intent
- Has a moderately high conversion value. You want to attract the people who are likely to join your programs or purchase your products visa vis-a-vis those who are just curious browsers
You can always expand to other related keywords, but do not go overboard. Long form content wins, but you do not want to make a blog post longer than it should be. If you add a FAQs section, then stick to quick answers than going in-depth in each of the quiz. If you have to, then create a separate post for this.
2: Strategic Use of Visuals.
Visuals do magic to your posts, when done right. Visuals should support or compliment your message, not take away from it. Generic stock photos are minus a thousand times. If you want photos that are worth a thousand words, then you need to find those that really rely your message.
When it comes to niches such as relationships, health, wildlife and nature, recipes etc., you can easily find free stock photos that highly align with your messages. However, with technical niches such as digital marketing and SEO, you may have to use lots of screenshots and custom graphics.
My golden rules when it comes to perfect blog posts visuals include:
- Taking step by step screenshots
- Creating custom graphics using free platforms such as Canva
- Naming screenshots and images with SEO friendly file names
- Resizing images so that your website doesn’t take forever to load.
- If including video marketing , then host your videos on YouTube and embed on your post
You need to be a collector. Every time you receive an awesome Facebook comment, or a great email response, make sure you screenshot them and upload them to site so that you can always access them when you have to use them.
Always SEO your images. Visual search is becoming popular as visual search engines such as Pinterest continue to become popular. Google is not left behind. If you take images with your phone, your file are probably named IMG10006.png or something close. This naming system is bad for two reasons.
First, for organizing and easy retrieval. You will not remember that a particular image was named 1MG1006, but you can, if that image had a relevant filename such as growth curve 2020 marketing stats.
Secondly, Google can’t really tell what your image is about. Remember, this is important for Google to associate your images for particular visual search queries.
Things to do with blog visuals for SEO:
- Rename file names to include keywords in image filename
- Include Alternate tags for all the images you upload
- Include the keywords in the Alternate tags
A lot can be said about blog visuals, but it all boils down to two rules: Use the right visuals in the right instances.
3: Use Formatting to Your Advantage
The most powerful tool that you have as a content creator is formatting. You may have the best content, but if you don’t get people to read, notice elements and take action, then you will be curtailing the power of your works.
Simple formatting such as use of bullet points, subheadings and buckets, can transform how people engage with your content.
Brian Dean of Backlinko knows how to do this super well.
Other formatting tools that content creators do not quite use include bold texts, strike-throughs and italization.
4. Riveting Intros
Whitespace is huge. Breakdown long paragraphs and include spaces around images and subheadings.
Writing a perfect blog post is a process involving several phases. Each phrase requires specific skills. One of these phases is writing intros.
Now, writing a powerful into is an art, something that you can perfect with time. What I’ve found to work really well is use of buckets to introduce a concept and promise a solution.
There are several ways you can approach introductions:
- Start with a shocking statistic: 2000,000 blogs post will be published today. (This is true)
- Ask a provocative question
- Promise a value you can deliver on
- A super relevant story broken down into various parts to be told throughout the post.
Writing powerful intros is a skill that you will perfect with time. You may want to keep a swipe file of the best intros that you come across, so that you can always access them.
5. Backed Research.
If you want to attract authorities in your field and even have them reference your article, you need to go an extra mile in researching your content. Find relevant data and statistics to use in your blog post.
You can turn this data into visuals using free tools such as Canva and Visme. With these two tools, you can create engaging charts and graphs that people will share online this enhancing the traction that you post gains.
6. Sensational Headlines.
In an era where 60% of people don’t read beyond a headline, you want to spend more time crafting your best heading. Click-throughs are largely influenced by the wordings in the headline.
To create perfect blog posts headlines, I suggest the following:
- Limit the length to 60 or fewer characters
- Include at least one impactful power word
- Use numbers
- Use brackets where necessary eg The Optimal Blog Post Length {New Data}
Other Elements of a Perfect Blog Post:
- Addresses the people also asked questions around a query
- Clean and short urls slugs
- Conversational tone
That’s it. I believe with these elements of a perfect blog post, you will be able to improve the quality of your content and get people talking about you.
What Next?
Content writing is an art, just like story telling. To be good at it, you have to keep learning and practicing. One of the best content writing courses I recommend is Hands-on-Writing. You can get this course and 18000 others for 2 months free when you sign up with Skillshare today
Do you have other must-have elements for writing your blog posts?
