If you’re looking for blog content to fuel your next content marketing campaign or to simply boost the number of posts on your brand new business website, how do you find the best?
Blogging is a brilliant way to establish your brand as an authority in its field and draw in a relevant, engaged audience, but you need the right words to do so.
When relying on blog content from a third party writer (an excellent decision, we might add), there are five things to look for.
While plenty of people read blogs from the first to last word, there are just as many visitors to your website who will want to scan the content.
They do this to find the stuff that matters to them, and in order to make their life as easy as possible (and ensure they don’t head elsewhere), your blogs need to be broken up into sections and short, concise paragraphs).
A bit like what you see here!
Blogs with long, wordy paragraphs stand less chance of success in this busy digital world.
Blogs are generally rated as highly trustworthy sources of online information.
That’s fab, but if you quote statistics or sound bites from other sources, it’s vital that you provide a link back to the original source. Firstly, this means you’re rewarding that site with a link back and acknowledge it as the source of the information, but, secondly, adds weight to your blog.
This is particularly important when it comes to stats, so make sure any blog obtained from a third party writer is backed up with links to the original sources.
Blogs aren’t academic papers, and they’re not traditional news articles - they should be warm in tone and dispense with any form of business speak.
The best blogs are conversational in tone and roll easily off the tongue when read out aloud.
A blog that’s trying to be too clever with its wording is unlikely to win many readers.
No matter which industry you’re in, a bit of humour can go a long way - providing it doesn’t hurt or defame anyone in the process.
Life can be stressful, busy and unrelenting at times, which is why blogs are often a source of light relief for readers.
No one is expecting a stand up routine, but a sentence or two that elicits a wry smile is never a bad thing.
There’s a misnomer that Google loves long form content.
We’re not suggesting it doesn't, either; the search giant does indeed love long form content. But it likes short form, too.
This is because Google just loves great content! Blogs that are needlessly padded out in order to meet a specific word count aren’t of any use to your website and won’t guarantee high search rankings.
They’re easy to spot, too, because padded-out blogs will consistently repeat themselves, use words within sentences that aren’t required and probably bore you to the point of exhaustion.
We’ve only scratched the surface above, but you’re at least now armed with the five most important aspects of a great blog post.
So, what are you waiting for? Go find the next words for your business blog!