What to write on a blog or an ode to quality content

Let’s start by imagining a standard situation – you have a website, and your company, which you trust to promote the site, or your marketer says: “We need a blog, we need to fill it up its updated content, and at the same time we will share it with social networks and increase the reach of users, which will bring us additional traffic to the site and improve the ranking of the site in the search engines”. From all this flow of someone else’s consciousness, you understand only one thing: there must be a blog on the site that nobody needs and that nobody reads, and time will have to be spent on it.

Tip #1 – write on topics that excite your customers.

Sounds easy? Yes. But the implementation is often difficult. Here you can go in two ways: first, ask your SEO company about what to write on your blog, and believe me, they will give you absolute clear recommendations, because they know your niche, product, competitors, and track all the changes in the progress of the industry as a whole . The second way: sit down and think, imagine yourself in the place of your client. For example, you have a website for selling decorative flowers, it would seem, what to write about? About everything that can excite lovers of flowers in pots – when to transplant, how to deal with pests, and how a flower loves light or shadow, and why are yellow leaves, and how many species of violets exist, but how to choose the right soil for a cactus, and who are succulents , and what is the difference between fertilizer “A” and fertilizer “B”, and when to produce root fertilizing?

And so we have already planned the work on writing articles for a month. And do not forget to add here the questions of your customers that they ask you or your managers – and the blog becomes alive and interesting, such articles can already be posted not only on your site, but also in social networks.

Tip #2 – use simple and accessible language.

Remember, you are read not only by professionals or experts in the product, you can read by random people also, and they should understand what you are writing about. Conduct an experiment, read the article to a person who does not know what you are doing, or who is not in the subject. If he understood, then it is written correctly, if after reading he asks a million questions – rewrite. For example: when you explain to the child that the Earth is round, you find the right words and understandable images? Here also – look for common ground.

I really love research and statistics, it gives me the opportunity to better understand people and their desires. Now I will share with you the research that was conducted by the world-famous edition – The New York Times. In the age of digital technologies, the publication is in step with the times and also went to the Internet, where you can subscribe and read the newspaper from a tablet or phone. So, the editors noticed that people having read the article do not share it, they do little to get likes or reposts, and comments and at least something from the category “mission is not feasible.” Why is that? After all, every article in The New York Times has a social and political weight, this newspaper is the leader and the formulator of opinion. What is the reason?

Having spent a lot of money, effort and time, it was possible to find out interesting features of people’s behavior in social networks, and how they share content. It’s not about the youth audience, but about self-sufficient users, who are usually referred to as the “middle class”. It turned out that people share posts for several reasons:

• 94% of users share practical and useful information, which is really high-quality. In fact, they pull on the wall like hamsters all useful, put everything in a box that they can use with 100% benefit for themselves. Each post or repost of such users is a piece of information to which they will be guided or applied. These can be posts about health, proper nutrition, about caring for children or about the settings of targeted advertising.
• 84% copy posts simply to express support for something: a person, a homeless animal, a brand, a country.
• 78% of users make repost records, just to “be in touch”, if they make a repost record of a friend, then it sounds more like “hello” than as “wow, I like this information.” Copying a record of a brand or a popular community, they want to say: “hello, I’m here, I’m with you” to everyone who is in this community.
• 73% want to show their attitude or involvement in some event, idea, which are usually loud and scandalous. These can be political posts, records of terrorist acts, notes on elections, major political or public figures.
• 69% make posts for “cleansing conscience”. Reposts of social actions and human rights organizations, a post in defense of cancer patients, a note about an animal shelter that needs help, or a repost of a sick child.
• 68% make posts that would seem to be who they are not, but who, in their opinion, is fashionable to be. For example, it can be people who are overweight, and who make reposts of information about vegetarianism and a healthy lifestyle.

And so we have tip #3 – respect your readers, make them smarter.

To do this, publish only the latest news, conduct research, post cases, share information and observations, give your readers what they want, let them learn from you, take and use your experience, help them solve their problems. Be honest, talking about something, reveal your soul, show the progress of your thoughts, be an authority and guide.

Tip #4 – facts and figures.

Not all users equally perceive information, someone believes in numbers, someone believes the facts and opinion leaders. Use this, show figures and wrap them up with examples and spheres of applications. There is no such topic that can not be described in figures, as there are no such figures that can not be described in words. Remember this.

Tip #5 – only 20% of readers will reach this place.

It sounds sadly, but we do not like to read long articles, and if, as in our case, you do not get away from a long note, then be prepared that only 20% of readers will read it to the end, and only 2-5% of them will commit action – put a like or make a repost. 80% of users do not read articles longer than 3-4 paragraphs or longer than 2500 characters without spaces. And if you have a complex product, the statistics on the big articles on the blog and in social networks and does become sad.

Tip #6 – catchy headlines, tightening the intro and pictures are being ruled!

Our readers are spoiled, the complicated data they want to see in infographics, the picture should be catchy and targeted, and the introduction should not just be pleasant, but tighten.

Tip #7 – font.

Someone likes a serif font, someone loves without, someone has a one and a half interval, someone is single. In fact, everything has long been analyzed, so I quote the following statistics from the UK Research Institute, which states that:

• The most convenient font for reading is the Georgia, 16th size, which corresponds to the size of the book font;
• The height of the line is 24 px;
• The size of one paragraph – no more than 4-5 lines;
• The article should be structured with headings and subheadings, which will increase its readability.