How to Come Up With Quality Content for Your Blog

Wondering how to write compelling content that will impress your visitors and prompt them to share your posts? This article has some smart tips that will help.  

Quality content is what keeps your blog alive. It convinces your target audience to bookmark, share, and return. But is there a surefire recipe for a good blog post? Of course not " your audience will judge your posts subjectively, and what appeals to one reader may not appeal to another. However, there are a few tactics you can use to make sure that you are presenting your content in the best way possible.

Make a Schedule

Your readers want to develop a relationship with you, so make sure you offer them the chance. For instance, if you post every Monday and Tuesday, they will get accustomed to reading your blog on those days without checking their RSS feed aggregator or your blog’s Facebook page. If they don’t find anything new, they may get disappointed. The more frequent the posts, the better; when it comes to search engine optimization, regularly updated websites tend to rank higher.   

At the same time, writing whenever you feel “in the mood” isn’t an effective strategy in the long run. Once you’ve already written a few posts, it will probably become more difficult to find inspiration. Furthermore, waiting around for a brilliant article idea isn’t advisable, as it may cause you to lose traffic. If you take the time to come up with a posting schedule or an editorial calendar, you will overcome blogger’s block more easily and develop the habit of writing something on a regular basis.  

Get Inspired

This one may be tricky, but not impossible. We’ve all suffered from lack of inspiration at one point or another " the trick is to know how to deal with it. Copyblogger came up with a great infographic on this topic, which shows all the different ways you can create compelling content when you don’t have a clue. They advise bloggers to ask friends and readers for ideas, do an interview, write a review, or explain their successes or failures.

From our experience, the best way to get over the blank page syndrome is to do something else for a while. Go for a walk; read a chapter of a new book; watch an episode of your favorite TV show. Allow your brain to relax and recharge at the same time. You may gain a new perspective and find that you’re more inspired once you return to the task at hand.

Write An Engaging Title

Titles grab readers’ attention and intrigue them to find out more. There are many ways in which you can make sure that your title is engaging. Think about the target audience of your blog and do your best to come up with a title your readers would find appealing. For example, titles like “how to fix X problem,” or “X easy ways to do Y” answer a question for the reader and are more likely to generate clicks and shares. Using strategic words in your title can also benefit your blog: quick, easy, free, fast, and so on. To help with SEO, you should also integrate one or more keywords. However, keep in mind that you are not writing the title for a robot. You want to intrigue your audience, so don’t stuff your title with too many keywords. For more tips on how to write alluring titles, go here.    

Make Your Post Visually Stimulating

Your text should be easy to scan. Use paragraphs and include photos and videos to make it more visually stimulating. Readers are rarely patient enough to go over a long and unformatted text. When you break the article up with photos, quotes, and videos, it’s more likely to catch their attention. In the same note, you can bold certain sentences or buzzwords to make it simpler for the reader to figure out what the text is really about. Bullet lists are also pretty appealing and easy to read.

Long, narrative paragraphs are only fine when you tell an engaging story; otherwise, keep it short. There’s even an acronym to help you remember this rule " K.I.S.S. It stands for Keep it simple, stupid!

Start a Conversation

Your posts should include a call to action in every article, which will make the reader react, either by distributing your content or by commenting on your post. You could try asking a question or two at the end of the article, or encourage your readers to share their experience.  Use the comment section to continue the conversation.

Take advantage of social media, as well. Always respond to tweets, Facebook comments, and so on " this tactic will help build your readership slowly, but steadily.

Be Accurate And Spell-Check

Errors, typos, and inaccuracy are a blogger’s worst nightmares. Always cite your sources after making sure that the information you’re presenting to the reader is clear and precise. Use a spell-checker to avoid any mistakes. When your article is full of errors it’s unlikely people will share it, even if the content is engaging. Furthermore, you can receive negative comments or social media mentions from your readers " a dreaded situation you should avoid at all costs.    

The main quality of a successful blogger is that he or she is able to write compelling content on a consistent basis. They are always brainstorming for article ideas, they look for inspiration everywhere around them, and they make sure that the final draft is the best possible version of the content. Consider the tactics above and you’ll be like them in no time.