When you post on your blog you want your posts to be the most effective they can be and to be able to reach a bigger audience. There is nothing more disappointing than writing a post and it not gain the views and engagement you were hoping for.
There are a lot of elements that make up a successful blog post and to ensure that your post is the most appealing to your audience. When you are sharing your content you want to make sure you have the fundamental elements to improve your SEO and that your posts are user friendly. Some of the essential elements are sometimes easily missed or mistaken, just some of the blogging mistakes you should avoid to help grow your blog.
Here are the 5 essential elements you should ensure your blog post has before you hit that publish button.
#1 Include a featured image
A featured image is the first graphic your audience sees when you share links on social media or when they click on your blog to read your post. Having a featured image is great placement, as an image that is placed above a headline the latter text ends up being read 10% more than when the image is placed lower. If you are sharing a review about a product it is much more appealing for readers to have an image featured of that product. If you are struggling with image ideas you should use stock images that are relevant to your post. Just ensure that if you are using a stock image you always credit the original creator.
#2 Use headings or subheadings
How many times have you been put off by large paragraphs of text? Using headings or subheadings can break down these larger paragraphs and it will be less daunting for your readers. A reader may have only visited your post for specific information therefore with headings and subheadings it can be easy for them to navigate them to that information. Not only does having these headings and subheadings make your post more appealing but it also boosts search engine optimisation.
Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash
#3 Include powerful call-to-action
Every blog post that you share should have a call-to-action, it could be leaving a comment, could be to read another blog post or check out a product or service you are sharing. Having these actions in your posts means you are seeking further engagement with your readers.
#4 Include images or graphics
Are you ever put off reading blog posts that are just reams of text and no images? It is important to share images especially if you are talking about products you are using or a place you have experienced, it can help your readers relate to your writing. As I said with the featured image you can use stock images with the appropriate credits. When using images in your posts it is important to include alt text, this helps improve your sites accessibility, help you rank in Google Images and it serves as an anchor text for image links. A post that has several images are so much appealing to an audience.
Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash
#5 Interlink your content
Do you like free advertising? That is exactly what interlinking gives you. When you are writing a blog post you may have relevant content that your audience could also benefit from. Interlinking content is great for SEO, it increases the number of pages per visit and increases how long visitors are on your site which helps Google recognise the time spent on your posts.
Focusing on these 5 areas can not only help you share effective content, but can help with SEO an driving engagement. They all work together to help improve your blog. I have been working on these especially for my older content and it has improved my DA and has been driving more blog traffic.
Do you have other elements that are a must for each of your blog posts? I’d love to hear in the comments.
These are some wonderful pointers. A very informative and helpful post!!
http://towardsbetterlifestyle.com/
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Thank you.
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This post is so helpful! I’m so much more likely to read blog posts if they have images, and linking to older posts is a great way of increasing engagement!
Serena / http://www.ramblingsofanotherunigraduate.com
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Thank you for reading and commenting.
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Such a helpful post. I do all these except adding a call to action.
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Thank you for reading and commenting. I definitely recommend adding a call to action.
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These are great must haves! I’m still learning about SEO and interlinking.
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Definitely they will help boost your blog posts and traffic. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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Good article- need to have powerful call to action in my posts…also like linking to older posts. Thank you for sharing!
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They help! Thank you for reading and commenting.
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These are all great tips! I have the Yoast plugin so I use it all the time to help with my posts readability with how much text there is in each paragraph etc! I always make sure to include images too break up the text, especially if I know its going to be a longer post too! Thanks for sharing.
Chloe xx
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Oooo that sounds really helpful. Definitely, breaking up text with images is a great way! I do that too. Thank you for reading 😊xx
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These are some really great tips. I completely agree that its better to break up text with subheadings, otherwise I tend to not carry on reading.
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Thank you for reading and commenting.
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Amazing tips, lovely! I always forget some of the basics of posts so this is super helpful!
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Thank you for reading and commenting. If you have a blog please comment the link.
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I definitely need to work better on including links in my blog post to increase my bounce rate! I also need to work on taking better quality pictures, or at least investing in some more good stock photos. Thank you for the tips my lovely 🙂 x
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Unsplash have free stock photographs and they have great quality images. X
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Great tips for a new blogger such as myself, noted call to action into my to do list for future blogging!
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I hope they help. If you have any questions and I can answer them I am more than happy to help. Just reach out on Twitter – twitter.com/bournemouthgirl
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A featured image is definitely a must in my opinion. It makes a plain blog post look more fancy and engaging to readers. I love when any post has a featured image, always makes me want to read the post!
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Me too! Thank you for reading and commenting.
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These are great tips! I definitely have a lot of things to learn about SEO and related stuff!
Daniela
http://danielanina.com
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