As bloggers, traffic is incredibly important. I don’t know any bloggers that would say they couldn’t use an uptick in their traffic or subscribers.
So, you want more eyeballs on your posts. Of course you do! You spent all that time crafting a really great blog post… now you want some people to read it and get something out of it.
How do you do that? There’s a mind-bogglingly large amount of things you have to pay attention to, but today’s infographic sums it up pretty nicely.
1. Keywords. Think of keywords as reverse google-fu. What words would you type into google that would lead people to your blog post? Use those keywords in your blog’s headline, in the URL, the meta description (make sure you have Yoast’s SEO Plugin), and a few times in the body of your blog post (but not more than 3% of all the words–it can have the opposite effect if you ‘keyword stuff’).
2. Craft an enticing headline. A good headline will draw the reader in. You can either tease them, or you can tell them what it’s all about, but we know that headlines that indicate the post is a numbered list (apparently 10 is the magic number) are quite popular. Basically, we love listsicles.
3. Images. Images are so important! They draw the eye in, and they make your blog post more shareable on Facebook and especially Pinterest. Take care to create great visuals for your post, using tools like Canva or PicMonkey. Learn to take better photos if you are a lifestyle blogger. Make sure you edit your photos so they aren’t huge files. The longer they take to load, the more people you’ll lose.
4. Length. I try to keep my blog posts to about 500 words, but according to this infographic, longer posts get more love. Who knew!
5. Links. Blogging is all about creating that circle of links. So link to other websites and blogs outside of yours, and link back to other blog posts on your blog, as well.
6. Play on people’s emotions. Your post will be shared more if it incites people’s emotions. If you make them laugh, make them angry, or make them cry, they will want to share you post.
7. Calls to Action. Make it easy for people to socially share your post (by installing social share buttons) and then ask them to do so, or ask them to subscribe to your blog, or newsletter. I also love the YARP plugin, which automatically directs the reader to another related post on my blog.
8. Timing. When’s the best time to publish? Tuedays through Thursdays get the most views, as less people are at work on Mondays and Fridays. I find publishing just before work (at 9 am is a good time), and then I usually socially share around 1 pm.
For more information about how to write the perfect blog post, study today’s infographic:
