You wrote a blog post, and nothing happened. No email sign-ups. No purchases. Not even a comment or share. After spending an hour or more on this great content, you expected results.
And, you never want a blog post to flop like that again. Your time is valuable, so your blog post needs to meet the expectations you have for it.
In this article, we’ll outline 5 tips you can follow to write blog posts that actually convert. This article was not designed to add a few easy optimization tips, but rather to focus on the core needs of effective blog posts.
Since you have high ambitions for your corner of the internet, we’ll treat you with that mutual respect.
You won’t find a generic how to write a blog post checklist here; rather, you’ll read focused advice that will fuel your writing and engage your readers in the long term.
How to Write Blog Posts: 5 Tips You Need to Know
Table of Contents
1. Know the Goal and Audience You Need to Reach Intimately
What does a conversion mean to you and your business? What actions do you want readers to take?
A conversion is any activity where your reader performs your desired action. This can be:
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Purchase a product or service from your brand
- Follows/Likes/Comments
- Product referral
- Affiliate purchase
- Enter a giveaway
More importantly, what’s the benefit for your readers if they convert?
This is probably the most difficult question to answer and tip to implement from this blog post guide because you need to know your target audience intimately.
Knowing your target audience is key in converting readers because you need to know who you are talking to and what they are more likely to respond to.
This article would be triple in size if we also disclosed our target market formula, but here are a few starter questions to get you moving:
- What does your product, service, or business do?
- What is valuable about what it does?
- How does it add value to your reader’s life?
- What about you is unique to your competitors?
- How can you serve customers differently?
- What kind of person needs what you do – and in the unique way you do it?
The target audience can vary slightly with each blog post, but all of your posts should be interconnected to a core customer need.
Show your brand personality and opinions in your blog too. Being personal in how you speak to readers of your blog works for almost every industry.
While fact-based content is relevant (think news article vs opinion column), when you add in what makes you and your reader unique, you’ll speak better to their needs. We talk about this more in Tip #4 about Know/Like/Trust.
2. Tie in Your Purpose Throughout Your Content
Are you talking about the goal of your article only in the introduction and conclusion?
Don’t make this mistake.
Because many readers are skimming, your blog post’s goal needs to be apparent no matter what section your reader is diving into.
Every point you share should re-engage your readers. For example, we are covering here how to write a blog post that converts readers into newsletter subscribers (or another conversion, it’s up to you). There are many ways to tie in your purpose.
Which one do you think drives your point more?
- Every blog post should have bullet points.
- All blog posts should have bullet point lists in their content if they want to convert readers.
(Hint, pick B!)
How to say your goal in many different ways – examples:
- This tip helps drive engagement because…
- You can encourage more sign-ups on your blog by following tip #2 closely.
- If you only follow 1 tip in this article on blog post conversion rates, let it be this one.
- This tip takes longer than the others on our list, but it is one of the most effective tools for blog post conversions. Don’t skip it!
- When I followed this one piece of advice, my blog posts saw double the engagements.
Similar to the marketing rule of seven (where a consumer needs to see your product seven times before buying), this one tip will help reinforce your message.
3. Format Your Blog Post for People that Don’t Want to Read It
It seems counterintuitive, as you want people to read your content, but in essence, your blog post should be formatted for people to get answers quickly.
Yet, you can’t set up a blog post that is only one super-long paragraph, similar to a book with no breaks between paragraphs or subjects.
Plus, having the content within your post that covers different sections of the main subject helps show trust and authority (which we also discuss in Tip #4) should the reader need more information before making a decision.
How do you find the balance between creating a blog post that…
- People can speed read
- Isn’t too short that they bounce on the page
- Is fun for the subset of people that do read the whole thing
- and brings in sales or mailing list subscribers?
Here are a few key tips that will help blogs of all niches tell a story and improve readability.
How to improve blog post readability and skimming:
- Keep all paragraphs 3 sentences or less
- Use a combination of headings and subheadings
- Create bulleted or numbered lists
- Identify the purpose of each section early on
- Use occasional text styling like BOLD, Underline, or Italicizing for emphasis
- Include pictures or infographics (read more on tip #5 about images)
- Add hyperlinks for further reading and sources
- Add CTAs (calls to action) throughout the article and at the end in a variety of formats
It’s fairly simple, right? We’ve used all the above tips in the article you’re reading right now.
Most articles on the topic of creating blog posts that convert focus only on the above formatting tips, as you may have seen in your research.
As you read other blog posts in the coming days, pay attention to these tips and how you read content online. You’ll start to notice the pattern, and it will be easier to adopt in your own content.
What type of styling encouraged you to engage with one blog over another?
4. Illustrate Know/Like/Trust and Get Opinionated
Once you know your target audience, you are more likely to convert them into die-hard fans with your engaging blog posts. Why is that?
When you know someone, you also know how to talk to them.
For example, you talk to your parents differently than you talk to your friends.
Your readers want to feel like you are speaking directly to them, not a generic person.
When you are writing, speak directly to your readers, as if you are talking to a friend over a cup of coffee. It’s much more engaging for the reader, and it makes the blog post sound less like an advertisement or strategy presentation!
This is why the more “practical,” easy advice that you often see when it comes to writing your first blog post isn’t the focus of this post.
Our attempt here is to share practical advice from our own twist in tips #3 and 5, but the bulk of this article on converting readers through your blog is focused on determining what makes you unique.
Our Point! You’re the missing ingredient. Your readers want to know what you think. Don’t hold back.
The know/like/trust factor is where you show your authority (know), and personality (like), and deliver results or reliable information (trust).
By following the tips in this article, you’ll have readers that convert to your blog posts, as well as establish yourself in these 3 ways.
5. Always, Always, Always have Images in Your Blog Post (and other media types)
Having multiple content types within an article improves readability, time on the page and even answers questions.
The key is to tie the images to the content rather than generic stock photos. Otherwise, it’s just noise.
How to Use Images On Your Blog
- Show screenshots of the product/service in action (Example: Google Analytics of your blog traffic)
- Use photos that show how the reader will benefit or feel if they adopt your tips
- Show customer photos with snippets of their reviews
Other Types of Media to Share In your Blog Posts
- Infographics
- Click to Tweet or other shareable content CTAs (Like Pinterest callouts)
- Charts showing pros/cons or feature comparisons to other competitors
- Video review of the product or customer testimonial
Using a variety of media types, images being the most common is said to increase blog post views by 94%. That’s a number not to be ignored when it comes to creating engaging blog posts and increasing conversions.
Conclusion
By following these tips, you’ll be able to create blog posts that are both informative and persuasive, encouraging your readers to take the desired action.
If you want to see better results from your blog, start using these five tips today. Writing in an engaging and conversational tone, addressing your audience.
Have you tried any of these techniques when writing your own blogs?
