5 Simple Effective Blogging Tips And Tricks To Grow Your Blog Today

Do you want your content to get read and shared? or do you want it to get ignored just like other mediocre content on the web?.

It's up to you.

When it comes to writing content a lot of things do matter apart from writing alone.

Writing is a part of the deal, but it's not the whole package.

Luckily for you, today I'm going to share with you, the 5 content writing tips that'll get your posts shared more and drive more traffic.

Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you about proofreading, consistency and other obvious tips you probably know already.

Let's get talking:

#1: Know what your visitors want

The very first step you need to creating content that will get shared and boost your traffic is to know  what people want.

People are coming to your blog to get something right? they probably want to get the latest news, purchase your product or something else.

Before you start writing, make a decision to either solve a problem or answer a question with your content.

The best way to do this, is simply by surveying your readers through Qualaroo.

Asking for user feedbacks can also be a great to improve on your content composition.

After the survey, your post should then be built around the answers you get from your readers through that survey and through the feedbacks you've received.

Surveying your readers will open doors to crafting more content that'll yield results.

Apart from that, you'll be able to know the set of people who read your blog daily, ranging from entrepreneurs to startups to bloggers… and so on.

Write down a list of answers (complaints) you receive from the survey.

And make available solutions and recommendations within your content.

This time, you won't be writing to fill in the quantity gap between you and your competition.

You'll be writing to influence the decisions of your readers and to guide them through to taking action.

This strategy has helped many small businesses in past times grow their businesses into giant brands.

#2: Know what's on the web, know your keywords

Before you start crafting your headlines, look out for what's already out there on the web.

Of the topic you're trying to write on has already been touched and fully covered, then you'll need to do an extra work and a little more keyword research to standout.

For example, if you're in the costume and fashion niche and you want to write about "Eyeglasses" (which has already been fully covered), without proper keyword research and a mind-blowing content, your post will definitely get lost.

There are many free ways and tools to getting keywords that you can rank for with a few quality Backlinks, but here's two steps to getting your golden keywords:

1. Google auto-complete – Google's auto-complete feature, also known as Google suggest is a goldmine for low competitive keywords with moderate to low search volumes. Haven't you noticed that when you try to search for a query, google tries to give you varieties of other terms below the search box to click on? Surprisingly, those terms are arranged according to the alphabets you type and according to their search volumes. Type in your ideal topic, look out for what Google suggests as you type. It's best to have all the suggestions on a piece of paper, which leads us to the next step…


2. Google keyword planner – Now that you have a list of keywords, go straight to Google keyword planner tool and check them out. Just in case you don't know how to use the keyword planner to it's full potential, checkout the Google keyword planner guide. Another way to getting a boatload of keyword idea that doesn't end up in the Google keyword planner by exploring other keyword tools like Keywordtool.io, Ubersuggest and other secret tools. Just by researching keywords, you'll be able to know what keywords you can rank for easily. When you find a low competitive keyword you're sure to rank for, go straight to Google, type in the keyword and click on the search icon. After that, checkout the word count on the page. And use also checkout the page and domain authority of the first three results alongside the number of links pointing to each page using the Open Site Explorer. If the first three pages have a domain authority below 50, a page authority below 20, then you're sure to rank for them. Ignore the number of links they have (their link metrics). You'd be surprised to see that the page on first spot has two links and the one on the third spot? over 500. That happens, what matters is the authority of link source which determines the link quality. Not quantity.

#3: Produce a masterpiece

Now, you've gotten your keywords and you know what questions people are asking.

It's time you started writing your masterpiece to satisfy your reader's curiosity. And give them more than enough answers to their questions.

This is where most bloggers fail to complete the job.

They produce content that isn't needed.

It's never an easy task to producing a masterpiece, but to help you do just that, I've outlined 3 tips which you can always use to producing a better content:

1. Outline your points – By outlining the main points of your article before you write, you'll able to produce content at a faster rate than when you have no points listed out. The difficulty of writing often falls in what next to do. When you have nothing else or no more points to write about, it becomes difficult to think of one, which will take you much time to do.


2. Forget about SEO – SEO is important, right? but do you know it's best to ignore it when you write? It really won't go well if you write with SEO in mind. What about your readers? will your content make any sense to them? it will certainly not. Try to use your keywords at the beginning of your content, but use it naturally, such that it appeals to both your readers and the search engines. Dedicate a paragraph to do this, then forget about it and focus on producing your natural masterpiece.


3. Mind your word count – This doesn't mean you should stop every 3.66 minutes to see how much word you've put down. If you really want to produce a masterpiece that doesn't get to compete with other similar content on the web, then word count (or content length) does matter a lot. Don't expect your post to easily go viral when it's just an average 1500-word post (which is the supposed ideal length of an average blog post). Why should it go viral? Do you know what content length gets to stay on top spot of the search engine results pages for almost all user queries? it's literally above 2000 words. Now you can choose to either double that or triple it. It depends greatly on the way you exploit tip #1.

#4: Format your masterpiece very carefully

While a great post can send users or traffic to your website, a poorly designed post can so wonders in sending visitors out of your site.

Format your content very carefully to enable users or readers to read and scan it easily.

Yes, people scan too. And not all visitors will read your content word for word.

When it comes to content layout and arrangement, there's a lot of things you can play around with until you get the best fit your post deserves.

Here's a quick list of tips to help you arrange your content and give it a better look:

1. Create shorter paragraphs – Seems familiar, right?. Longer blocks of text will definitely discourage visitors to read your content. Break longer blocks of text into shorter paragraphs by including white spaces after 2 to 9 or 10 lines of plain text. This will help.
   


2. Use italic and bold tags – You want people to understand not just the first few paragraphs of your post, right? then using attention grabbers like bold tags and italic tags will work well to keeping your readers engaged when reading your post. Avoid using bold and italic tags for subheadings. Use h2 or h3 tags instead. You might also want to italicize your questions and opinions to keep the conversation going.


3. Use fewer links – Using too many links (both external and internal links) will either discourage your readers or annoy them. And you don't want that to happen. This doesn't mean that you should stop linking out to relevant pages on other websites and pages within your site, but do it wisely. And make sure those links are worth mentioning within your article. You obviously aren't the next Wikipedia.

#5: Refurbishing works too

There are different types of content form and different set of people love them and prefer one over the other.

For example: I love reading plain texts to watching videos and listening to podcasts and Infographics because it's always gonna be there.

While I prefer plain texts, some other people might prefer videos and podcasts.

Well, you've caught my gist. Now, it's not just enough to produce a text based content which will only satisfy text-lovers and readers.

How about the other chunk of people who would rather watch a paint go dry than read your text-based content?

You've already done 1/4 of the job by producing one form (Text).

And by producing other forms of content with that same information, you could make the world go NuTs!.

That's what refurbishing is about - producing different forms of content from one existing form. If you already have a video content that's even better.

The video transcripts can serve as a great post, especially when it's an interview.

And if it's a podcast, the transcript serves the same purpose.

By doing this, you'll be able to satisfy the information hunger of a larger chunk and set of people on the web.

Some people hate videos, some hate podcasts but love Infographics, some love videos and hate plain texts (reading). And very few percent are lovers of all forms of content.

This doesn't mean you have to create all four forms of any content you publish, but you'll have a better chance to building success with your content when you do.

It doesn't have to be 4, you could do 2 or 3 or more.

Normally, a great masterpiece post doesn't really need a second form to thrive and go viral.

Key takeaways

1. Know what type of people visit your site and produce content around their persona and everyday problems they face.


2. Survey your visitors and ask for feedback just to know what you aren't doing and what you should do.


3. Know your target keywords. You sure as hell want to get a ton of visitors to read every blog post you publish. And that can't happen when you target super competitive keywords or none at all.


4. Produce something better. Your content won't ever go viral if it's not different from the existing piece of content on the web.


5. By refurbishing or reformatting your content, you'll be able to satisfy different categories of information consumers. This might seem like a lot of work to you, but it sure works.

Summing up

When it comes down to writing content that'll rank well and boost your blog traffic.

Writing and doing search engine optimization for your site won't cut it.

You have to go extra miles to achieve success with each post you push out.

And to do this you need research, you need to know who you're writing to and why you're writing about a subject.

You also need to know what problems your visitors are facing and compile a boatload of useful answers to satisfy their want.

And their crave for information.

With time you'll notice a great increase in both the traffic to your website and engagement of your readers.