13 Blogging Tips for irresistible content

How can I write more compelling posts? Posts that Google will ‘find’ and my readers will want to read?

Welcome to Bloggie Friday!

This is a question I’m often asked, and something I’m always trying to get better at myself.

So I did some research and came up with some ideas and an exercise that I hope might help you too.

How to write compelling content for your blog

If you had a business and a customer rang you up asking what you do, what would you tell her?

“You’d probably give her essential information about how you understand her problem, options for solving the problem, examples of how you can help, and explanations of why you perfectly meet her needs, right? And I’m betting you’d want to explain it in the most compelling fashion you could …” Brian Clark, Copyblogger

Basically, that’s what Google wants you to do with the content on your site and although a few key words in your posts, in your titles and in your image tags are necessary, stuffing your content with key words isn’t.

So we need to create relevant, compelling and useful content in order to engage our readers, but also to rank well in search engines.

You might also like : Blogging Tips and Social Media Tips

and How do I create an effective system to drive traffic to my blog?

What we write should be worth reading. It should be worth linking to and be information that people want to share.

So how to achieve all this?

There are several writing tools which writers (journalists, novelists, marketers) use to their advantage, and as a blogger you should aim to include at least one writerly tactic in each blog post.

So these are some of the questions we should be asking each time we write a post…

13 Blogging Tips for writing irresistible content.

1. Does this post have emotional impact – will my reader feel something or be compelled to do something when they’ve read it?
2. Does the post I’ve written refer to something close to my reader’s heart, does it pick up on a ‘fight’ or a ‘cause’ or a ‘trend’ of some sort.
3. Does my post have proximity – is it about something that’s close to home which my readers would relate to?
4. Is my post useful in some way – is it information that people might be searching for?
5. If not, is my post so entertaining or so interesting that it strikes a nerve in my readers?
6. Will this post have a big impact on lots of people? If not, is it targeted to the right audience?
7. Is my post topical and timely? Is it about something which is in the news or which has happened recently?
8. Does my post have a touch of the celebrity about it? Can it be made into a more prominent piece of writing by linking to or mentioning someone or something famous?
9. Does my post have currency, i.e. have people been talking about this topic recently? The best posts are always ‘chatworthy’?
10. Does my post have a human interest angle – is it about something which will make readers take a stance or sympathise with the content. Will it appeal to people on an emotional level?
11. Is my post simple, about a common every day issue or problem that my readers face, and is the post easy to understand?
12. Does the main theme of the post serve as a jumping off point to a universal issue or problem – or have I merely been navel gazing?
13. Could this post be split up and turned into a series?

Some Heroes and Heroines from around the web

Make Money Blogging – 20 lessons going from $0 to $100,000 per month. A post by Jon Morrow, the master of emotionally charged content and irresistible headlines. He’ll draw you in, hook you with a story line and keep you reading until the very last call to action.

Should Experienced Travellers go to Bali? Amanda from Not a Ballerina always writes thoughtful travel articles which go beyond top 10 lists. She delves into the realms of a thinking persons travel. Bali is close to Western Australia, so she ticks ‘proximity’ and her local readers will all have an opinion about this Island which has been considered Australia’s playground.

How to pack up and prepare for long term travel – on topic as always, Caz and Craig from yTravelBlog bring us a helpful human interest travel post which deals with packing up and moving on. It offers helpful steps, has broad emotional appeal (aren’t we all over attached to our possessions?) and a simple, humorous but delightful batch of photographs to illustrate the post.

Drowning in life – here are 7 things that will help now – Kelly Exeter writes A Life Less Frantic and always manages to hook readers with inspirational posts which offer snippets of wisdom and help. Who hasn’t at some stage felt overwhelmed by life and reaching for answers?

Jenny from A Taste of Travel writes long, interesting and classy travel articles combining food as a main theme. What a clever combination. Who doesn’t love food or travel? Jenny appeals to the glutton in me, and her beautiful pics of food in exotic or strange places are un-put-down-able. Just look at this post: A Taste of New York: Knish

Exercise

Could you create a really useful multi-part tutorial delivered over several posts?

Which topic would you develop?