Tips to create catchy blog posts to boost your brand and business
Author: Arun Pillai
Sometimes, hand holding has the power to push one forward to successive sales drives. Design your blog posts through this easy guide. It promotes a gentle urgency that works better than an aggressive tone.
5 kinds of posts matter
How-To posts
Understanding the target audience is the key to writing “How-To posts”. These posts are wrote with an intention to help. Most often they won’t have any of your product/service information. Rather, they help your target community to solve some immediate bottlenecks they face.
- Identify common problems that your target group face, or tasks they want to accomplish
- Write out step by step instructions
- Support with images, illustrations or infographics
List-based Posts
These are engaging features built around topics that most readers look for. The essence of list posts is simplified presentation for easy reference of facts and figures or problems and solutions.
First, pick a compelling topic. Look up the web using tools to find trending topics. Look for the keywords that are most searched for. Or check the hot and relevant discussion topics of the time.
Next, build an outline. Start with a bulleted list of what you will cover in the entire article. This helps you and the reader—for the reader it tells what they can expect in the article; for you this gives the compete framework for the article. Each bullet evolves into one sub heading of the article.
Make sure it maintains a logical flow and answers precise questions or doubts that the reader might have.
Write catchy headlines. List posts generally go well with formula headlines that start with a number, and then state the solution it provides.
E.g.: 7 steps to make your email marketing earn high conversion
Curated Posts
This style is ideal when you wish to share third party information also with the readers. How?
- Identify a topic, add a catchy headline
- Search the web and social media for opinions related to the topic
- Take excerpts of expert opinions from other articles
- Embed relevant social media posts into your blog post
- Add appropriate background and comments
It is easy to create, and garners extra trust because of multiple authentic voices involved. This is an easy way to bring in expert voice into your blog without the risk of plagiarism.
Such crafted blogs allow the readers to get a profile view of what others are also saying about the same topic. Include links of curated topics in your domain blogs. This style benefits all stakeholders. When your readers see the value addition they will trust you easily. Two key advantages:
- You get free authentic content from others
- You get free traffic because those whom you have quoted and their network also will share your posts
Slide shows with images
Often readers are in a hurry and need concise information. Slide shows are very effective for presentations with minimal text and images. They provide an overview of a particular project or brand.
A slideshow is about telling a story through a series of captivating images. The images should be relevant to the topic. You can get them from free image websites or buy from websites selling stock images. The images can be used as such; or you can add informational bits and convert them into telling info-graphics. If you have data-intensive stories to tell, you may create info-graphics like pie charts or bar charts.
Each image is accompanied by a caption in minimal words. The captions connect the image to the core them, and builds a link between the series of images. Such blog posts are easy to scan through, and conveys faster.
Newsjacking Posts
A combination of news + hijacking that is. When you connect your brand with a current event that many people are interested in, it creates awareness for it along with the piece of news. It reaches the masses cleverly and organically. Avoid pushing the brand if it does not connect with the news items that is going viral. It could give you bad press!
Last word
All the above styles should have seo keywords, and meta descriptions to optimize the post. Consistent blog posts drive better traffic. But what is most encouraging eventually is a gentle persuasion; not an aggressive tone that makes one step back.
About Author
Being a SVP - Enterprise Customers & Global Resellers Channel for over 8 years, Arun Pillai serves a key position in Lake B2B Data Partners Group. Due to extensive experience inside and outside his domain in varied industries like healthcare, education technology etc., he has accurate knowledge to predict the next big thing in data with high accuracy. Follow him to get his latest take on the day’s biggest data marketing happenings.
