My Top Tips on How to Write a Blog Post That People Will Read

Having blogged for MyKidsTime for 10 years, I can honestly admit that it did take a while to work out how to get people to read the content we were writing. Based on my experience, I wanted to share my top tips on how to write a blog post that people will read. 

If you’ve been blogging for your business, the first thing I want to do is congratulate you. It’s hard to commit to content as I know not everyone is ready to commit to quality content creation plus it takes time and effort to write a blog post.

But if you’ve been writing and you just haven’t had the views that you expected, let me tell you something that might surprise you. There are some very easy things you can do to make your blog posts really zing. And as a result of these easy tweaks, people will read them, I can guarantee you. How do I know this? Because I’ve done them and they have worked.

#1. Put Yourself in Your Reader’s Shoes

You may be totally passionate about your business or the chosen subject you are writing about, but make sure you put yourself in your reader’s shoes. You need to make the blog post as useful as you can to them. Talk to the customer personas or avatars that you have in mind for marketing your business to, and make sure the blog content is going to help or inspire them in some way. Questions to ask yourself about your blog post:

• have you given your reader something useful?
• if I came across this blog post on another website would I be saying wow, that was great?
• have you told them at the start of the piece why they should read it?
• have you told them at the end of the piece that you hope they found it useful?
• have you included calls to action to transact in some way with you e.g. sign up for special offers or get a freebie or follow you on social media?

#2. Spend Time on the Title

Think about these 2 possible blog post titles.

1. Power Rangers Party Ideas
2. Power Rangers Party Ideas to Shift Your Party into Turbo

Which one would be more likely to make you click and read?

Or these 2 possible blog titles:

1. Paddington Party Ideas
2. 9 Marvellously Marmaladey Paddington Party Ideas

See the difference? Your titles need to be as enticing to the prospective reader as they can be.

Use tools like the Coschedule Headline Analyzer and spend time on the title, it’s worth it. Is your title telling people why they should read this? If not, how can you make the title more interesting? How can you make the title convey to a prospective reader what they can expect? Would this title make you stop you in your tracks if you were scrolling online?

Tip: Power words such as Amazing, Wonderful, Fantastic really work to add a bit of zing to your title.

You might also enjoy reading 5 Proven Types of Blog Content That People Flock to Read

#2. Choose Your Lead Image Wisely

There’s a reason we say that a picture says a thousand words. Just as with your title, put some effort into picking a really good lead image. We have seen how changing an image on Mykidstime on older blog posts increases the pageviews dramatically.

And social media, which is where you will share your content, is very visual now. There’s so much on newsfeeds that a picture can be the catalyst to stop someone from scrolling.

Finally, when people do come to your website and browse onto your blog, you want to attract their attention to read the content you’ve spent time on.

So take some time to choose the lead image you use for your article. Make it as good as it can be. Make it fit with the topic you are writing about. Choose an image that appeals and attracts the eye.

#3. Don’t Forget Calls to Action

You’ve done the hard work and written your blog post. Your title and lead visual have made them click and start reading. Now’s the time to capitalise on having got them there. Don’t forget to add a call to action right up at the top of your blog post, e.g. after the introductory paragraph.

It could be “Join our mailing list to get x, y, z” or “Follow us on social media here” or “Get your free guide to z here”. Link your CTA to a sign up page with a form linked to your mailing software.

Add your call to action to the end of the blog post too – after all if someone has got to the bottom you know they have definitely enjoyed reading and may be more receptive to doing what you are asking them.

Here’s how we do our top-of-post calls to action on Mykidstime:

You might also enjoy reading 5 Things I Learned About Content While Creating an Award Winning Blog

#4. Use Good Structure

People read differently online to reading a book or a newspaper. They scan very quickly. So here are some tips you can follow quickly to make your blog post even more readable:

• Use sections to break up your blog post with subtitles as headers.
• Have a maximum 3 lines of text per paragraph as readers scan online so avoid long paragraphs.
• Think about using bullets to break up any lists you have within a paragraph.
• Use visuals to break up paragraphs or sections.

#5. Cross Link Wherever You Can

After the first section on your blog post, put your first cross link to another blog post that is related on your blog then add further cross links then further down after further sections.

Why is it important to cross link? Search engines like it when content is linked to other relevant content. But also your readers might have come across this one blog post and not realise you have other good content that they could read. So you want to make it easy for both search engines and your readers to find and read more.

Tip: When you publish your new blog post, go to an older blog post and add a cross link to your new blog post on that older blog post so they are both linked to each other.

You might also enjoy reading 9 Ways to Make Content Creation Simple

#6. Fresh Eyes

Always get a pair of fresh eyes on your blog post before you share it with the world. Someone else may pick up a typo or give you ideas for something to add. And it’s always nice when they tell you you have done a good job too!

I hope this has helped give you some easy ideas for things to implement on your blog to wow it up and make it even better.

Over to you now. Did you find these tips on how to write a blog post useful? Is there something I missed that I should include? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

If you need help with writing great online content, I work with businesses to help them with their content strategy and processes to drive results. Contact me today to have a chat.