There’s something to be said for following a clear structure when writing blog posts. An introduction, followed by supporting facts and anecdotes, concluded with a flourish. While this is an effective way to communicate and, hence, a tried-and-true method since our school days, it’s not always the best way to reach your audience!
It can be a bit boring.
Consider the following: Is the introduction catchy and engaging? Are the supporting paragraphs – the bulk of your blog – easy to read with multiple entry points for the eye to prevent skimming? Does the conclusion provide a tangible purpose to your business, such as a call to action or link to elsewhere on your site for further brand engagement?
Writing blogs for your client or potential client’s consumption is supposed to be informative and engaging.
Most of all, it’s a sneaky type of marketing tool that endears your audience to you through “free” advice and other information that proves to be of use to them in either an entertainment or educational manner and thus – and this is the key part – keeps them coming back for more!
Bonus points if your blog draws them deeper down the rabbit hole by pointing them to other parts of your website.
Our advice for writing an impactful blog post begins with five steps.
A “hook” grabs your reader’s attention and turns them into an audience for your words. It can be funny, should be straightforward, spark curiosity, or a combination of all the above.
The hook starts with a great title that can be used to nab that attention in a newsletter, email subject line, or social media post that entices your audience to click through and read your post. In this way, you’ve also created content that pulls double duty on all your platforms, meaning less work for you in the end. Hooray!
By involving your audience through a conversational tone, you’re building a relationship with them. And that relationship needs to be based on trust! Let them know why you’re the expert on this subject, and write straight from the heart to do it. Then, infuse it with brand tone and proper grammar.
Using conversational phrases such as “Quite frankly”, “You might notice”, “We know from this that”, along with transitional phrases between paragraphs will help the flow. When it flows, it’s easy to read, and your audience is more likely to read it right through to the very end.
Writing to your audience will first require you to learn your audience’s language. Once you have a clear profile (Are you a career consultant? Use the lingo—but explain all acronyms. Do you own a retail store? Who’s your target consumer, and write to them), you can use language they’ll understand and connect with.
This will help establish (if you haven’t yet!) or mimic your brand tone. It involves varying your sentence length between short, medium, and long to create a natural cadence. For a more in-depth look at this technique, check out our best bets for better writing: sentence rhythm.
Headers serve multiple purposes. They introduce, label, and offer an at-a-glance summary of what the blog post is about. They are also exceptional little tricks to draw the eye to various points of the blog, offering other “ins” to the piece; helpful in these attention span-deficient days! Headers also help with SEO (search engine optimization).
And please, for the love of the internet gods, always review your writing before posting! If possible, have someone else read it as well to catch those pesky spelling errors (never trust spellcheck, it doesn’t catch improperly used pronouns and such), as well as to get a feel for if your jargon and style is resonating with the reader.
Happy writing!
We are currently accepting applications for our 24-week 1-1 custom social media training, where we will help you with blog writing. Book a discovery session to see if this program is right for you!
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