Once upon a time, a curious visitor to your website clicked on the “blog” link. A list of topics appeared, and her investigation began. She learned, she laughed, and best of all, she shared your blog post on her favorite social media page!
Her friends started digging into your other brilliant blog entries, and the end of the story is happy sales and profits ever after.
Regularly posting original material - even one paragraph with a link to another article - is better than nothing, but living the fairy tale will take a little more effort.
Search ratings go up when your blog posts get hits. Lazy, boring blogs are not good targets. Make them earn their keep by being the most interesting posts in the world! Only then you can enjoy the benefits of good content marketing.
There are way more than two rules for producing the most interesting blog in the world, but I’ll get you started with this pair.
Brevity is Beautiful
You’re in a hurry. Which one of these will you read first?
This?
United WebWorks has a lot going for it. You will LOVE working with us! For starters, we are one of the friendliest companies in the southeast. A smiling face or an engaging voice is just what you need when your internet marketing headaches are getting to you. Our creativity will surprise you too! Our customers tell us frequently that they never could have dreamed up what we offered as a solution for content marketing and SEO results. Our responsiveness is second to none; you don’t have to wonder if we ever got your voicemail or email. Why do we work so hard for you? Because we’re also incredibly smart - smart enough to know that we never take our customers for granted and will work to earn your business every day.
You didn’t even read the entire first paragraph, did you?
Know this: four one-word sentences can convey as much as one ten-sentence paragraph.
Of course there is a time for more details and longer paragraphs: after you have aroused the reader’s curiosity and evoked some questions. Some of your blogs will drip with details and flow with facts, but don’t compel every visitor to slog through content they don’t care about!
Mix it up. A great blog engages and intrigues, then links the reader elsewhere to have their specific questions answered. That's how content marketing works.
So, get out the chisel. All Michelangelo did was get rid of the unnecessary stuff obscuring his masterpieces.
After you write your post, hone it down to it’s beautiful essence. Involve at least one other proofreader in the process like every other successful author out there. Editors are friends who can rescue you from an embarrassing typo or unintentional double entendre.
Smooth it, shape it, get rid of verbal rubble. Don’t say in 15 words what can be said in 5. Challenge yourself to get to the point quickly, while retaining your style.
Snapify Your Verbs
I just made up the word “snapify.” I could have written “improve,” or “upgrade,” but I didn’t. Why? because I knew two things would happen when you read the heading: 1) you suspected you knew what it might mean - something about being snappy 2) you started into the paragraph to see if you were correct.
Isn’t that an improvement on Make Your Verbs Sound Better?
Snappy verbs make a HUGE difference in readability. Consider the following:
Blah:
“Sales looked flat this quarter because there were weather problems associated with deliveries in the northeast. We are trying to catch up to our goals by making contact with dissatisfied customers and giving them an offer of a discount in the second quarter.”
Better:
“Sales flatlined this quarter due to the impact of bad weather on deliveries in the northeast. We are racing to regain our goals by extending a second-quarter discount to any affected customers.”
After you complete your first draft, circle back to HUNT and KILL the following overused, boring verbs:
am, are, is, was, were, be, became, become, seem, look, feel, walk, made, did, saw, got, had, talk, need, come, ask… etcetera
You get the idea. I just went back through this post and eradicated a few of these little vermin.
Dig up some dynamic synonyms, freighted with the connotations that connect. Use the Lookup tool in Microsoft Word to access a thesaurus. Google docs also has one under tools/define in the menu bar, or simply visit thesaurus.com.
Regularly published original blog posts on your website puts you in an elite group of web marketers. These captains of commerce capture online traffic and benefit from better search returns with improved content marketing. Go get some of that for your company!
Blog well, my friend.
