Writing Content to Get Traffic to Your Blog – The Basics

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that Blogging has truly revolutionized the way we communicate, promote and collaborate online these days. There is, it seems, no limit to what one can do when a blog is added to your online promotional engine. Even the smallest aspect of your daily personal life like recording journal entries is given an entirely new dimension.

With blogs you can find, build and start interesting debates and discussions.  Add to that the possibilities that you can even earn money while blogging.

Not to mention that the requirements for blogging are minimal. You need not be a scientist who posts revolutionary details about his latest experiment, you simply have a voice – something to say, to an audience ready, willing and able to take it all in.

If you blog well, that is to say, if you blog well enough for people to want to read it, you can earn a living by just going about your daily activity of posting blogs! Fashion bloggers, Food Bloggers, How to Bloggers and others have all discovered this.  The secret is to find a niche or content area that you have expertise in and are willing and able to share with a target audience.

Here are some of the things you can do to make sure that your blogging activities get rewarded withmore than just comments and praises:

Submit your blog to the search engines, online directories and blog communities. Once you are confident enough that your blog has quality content, doing so will help you gain even more traffic. The result:  more traffic, higher search engine rankings and greater chance of achieving your goals.

Here are a few tips to help you achieve your goals:

• Reader Friendly Content: At all costs keep your content – articles, poems, photographs, videos – reader friendly, that is to say, it should be easy to read, understandable and keep your  readers interest. Your blog content should revolve around your target audience (reader) so that your reader feels she or he is gaining something from reading your post. This is the basic rule in marketing.
• Worthwhile: Never let the reader feel that he has been tricked into reading your post or clicking on your blog link. You are simply hurting the long-term chances of that reader returning to your blog, otherwise over time,  your blog rankings will diminish instead of increase.
• Check for errors: Making grammatical and spelling errors can be a major turn-off for many readers. They may not visit your blog again simply because 0f the errors that you make. Always proof read your blog. A small typo here and there can be understood, but make sure you don’t make any major errors.
• KISS:  Keep It Short and Simple.  Long-winded posts tend to get boring. People do not have the time for your blog, no matter how well you write, so you have to compel the reader to FIND the time. In fact, your blog will be much more appreciated if your writing is succinct and to the point.
• Interesting: Hold your reader’s attention by making your posts interesting, informative, and entertaining (or a combination of any of those). Blog posts should be written in a tone that is easy to read and understand. Write short sentences and keep them crisp and precise. Get to the point early in the course of your article.

• Link: Prudently link relevant blogs you read to yours in order to build a network whereby those people will be in turn encouraged to link you. Remember, linking increases rankings.
• Keywords: Using well-thought out and researched keywords in your posts increases the search-ability of that particular article, which in turn leads more people to visit your blog.
• Think Clarity: Make sure you put your thought clearly before the readers so that it does not become tedious for them to read.
• Avoid Colloquialism: Write in a friendly tone. Avoid using too many slang words, cliches and jargon unless that is what your audience would expect.
• Post Title: A catchy post title or headline is important. It can attract a reader to your article like ants to honey. However, do not write misleading post titles that have absolutely nothing to do with the content, or you will lose creditability with your audience.
• Be consistent with your blog content and watch your blog traffic increase!

Be sure and check out my free resource The Copywriters Black Book. Download it and learn the secrets to writing great copy.