How to Write Captivating Blog Content? (That Gets Higher Ranking and Remarkable Engagement)

Blog posts help not only in getting more indexed pages in the search engines to create more opportunities, but also in establishing a business brand as a domain expert in its niche. This further aids in increasing lead generation and conversion. Thus, writing captivating blog content which not only helps you rank higher, but also increases engagement remarkably is vital.

How can you do it?

By knowing and blending the best practices of SEO marketing and SEO content writing.

Sounds simple?

Indeed, it is simple. All its need is your attention to grab the attention of your audience.

In this article, I will share the top 10 tips to write killer blog content that not only rank you higher, but also boost your KPIs and business objective accomplishment.

1.       Know the Purpose of Blogging

2.       Analyze Competitors for Competence

3.       Employ SEO Copywriting Standards

4.       Communicate with Readers

5.       Clutch Attention of Readers from Start to End

6.       Title That Makes It Unavoidable

7.       Blog Optimization Is Must

8.       Don’t Focus on the Word Count

9.       CTA Must Be Relevant

10.   Pro Tip: Add Your Uniqueness

Now, we are ready with the bucket list. Shall we get started to delve deeper?

1. Know the Purpose of Blogging

Blogging is not just a way of creating content as a norm. All other best SEO agencies are posting blogs, so you need to do the same. No, that is not the truth. Thus, to leverage the real benefits of regular blogging, you must know the agenda of using it.

Blogging, means writing and posting blogs, can be practiced to meet one of the following agendas:

• To educate visitors about your offerings.
• To educate readers about your expertise in a specific domain.
• To move a customer from one stage to another in his buyer’s journey
• To capture SEO benefits

Along with the above-mentioned core goals, the SEO experts also use blogging as a tactic to achieve some more goals as mentioned below:

• To increase the number of indexed webpages in the search engines so chances of getting more visitors increase.
• To rank on the top positions for highly competitive keywords. Sometimes the webpages struggle to achieve high rankings, but a finely written blog gets ranked.
• To increase “linking triggers” aka backlinks and engagement by getting more shares, comments, and likes.
• To push the ranks of the targeted keywords higher.

A blog post can be written, optimized, and posted to achieve all the above-mentioned goals. However, you need to keep in mind, one blog might be focusing on one point only.

For example, this blog is to educate readers about the SEO content writing, aka SEO copywriting, and leveraging its benefits by following the expert advice. Now, this article should not cover a topic to ask someone to buy our best SEO services as that does not follow the objective of this blog.

2.      Analyze Competitors for Competence

“Keep your enemies closer”  

You must have heard this proverb. To compete and surpass your competitors, you must know their strengths.

Do not have a favourite list of competitors. For each keyword you are targeting, you may have different competitors.

Here are some tips you can practice:

• Run a search for a keyword to know what type of blogs rank at the top. You can also use different SEO tools to come up with blog ideas for a targeted keyword.
• Review the top 10 links of the blogs that rank for your target keyword. Analyze the keywords and common pattern they follow.

For example, if you are writing a blog on digital marketing trends 2020 and if content marketing is part of 7 out of 10 blog posts, then it means, it has to be covered in your article as well.

3.      Employ SEO Copywriting Standards

Content marketing is one of the most result-oriented activities performed by SEO experts in India and all over the world. There are some predefined standards one needs to follow to leverage better results. Those guidelines and best practices must be applied in blog content writing as well.

Here are the top tips to keep in mind while writing SEO content for a blog post:

• Do not stuff keywords. It means do not add keywords forcefully. For example, if your keyword is digital marketing agency India, putting it as it is would sound unnatural. You have to write digital marketing agency in India.
• Keyword density must be controlled. Keyword density means how many times a keyword is mentioned within a hundred words. Here is a formula to calculate the keyword density.

Keyword Density = (Total occurrences of a keyword/Total number of words)%

Ideally, keyword density should not be more than 3%.

• Keyword Proximity. It means how close keywords are to each other. Do not keep keywords too close is a standard practice to follow.
• Linking. Link content with other relevant articles to increase engagement and reduce the bounce rate of the customers.
• Simple to Share. Make sure to have “Social Media Share” buttons on the blog posts so, with a single click, readers can share it.

4.      Communicate with Readers

“People do not like to read. They like to learn”.

Generally, readers scan content and pull the main information in their knowledge bucket. They do not read if they do not find it worth investing their time. Thus, the core agenda of your blog content should be conveying the information and ultimately the message to your readers.

How to do that?

Here are the top tips for you:

• Use headings and subheading. This helps readers to read what they need and skip what they already know.
• Use the bullet lists.
• Use short sentences. Break longer sentences in short ones.
• Use simple to comprehend language. Do not overwhelm the reader with heavy vocab.
• Use the terms used by your target audience.
• Maintain natural flow. Do not abruptly move from one point to another.

5.      Clutch Attention of Readers from Start to End

“As soon as the reader finds content boring or irrelevant, he will escape.”

To clutch the readers, you need to follow the best practices followed by experienced SEO copywriting experts:

• Give the Answer to the question in the beginning. People get bored of reading a 1000 words article which gives the answer after 980 words. Or the answer is lost in long paragraphs. Thus, give a brief answer at the beginning itself. Then, you can explain, how you come up with that answer.
• Give Reason to Read. At the beginning of the content, you must mention the reason to read the content. This might be the benefits the readers would get by reading the content or losses they need to face.
• Explain the problem at the start. There are some pain points experienced by people consciously or subconsciously. Thus, explaining the problem area that would be resolved in the blog post can be elaborated in the beginning. You do not necessarily need to be too specific with the problems, you can share that indirectly as well.
• Evoke the pain points. Once the readers find the problem somewhat familiar, the writer should evoke pain points. Explain in detail, how the problem is serious and why it must be resolved.
• Give a clear solution. You must have a solution to resolve the problem and fill the gaps. Explain in detail how that problem can be tackled.
• Use different content styles. You can add quotes, citations, GIFs, pictures, infographics, etc. to make it interesting.

6.      Title That Makes It Unavoidable

Title is the first thing, the reader will read. Thus, the title has to be captivating. There will be hundreds of articles giving the same solution, then why should someone choose to read your blog post? Your title will answer this question by being impressive.

Here are some tips to write a killer title for your blog post:

• Use power words such as best, remarkable, killer, must-know
• Use questions such as how-to, why, etc.
• Evoke emotions in the audience.
• Do not forget to use vital keywords in it.
• Do not oversell.
• Keep learning new trends in title crafting.

7.      Blog Optimization Is Must

Many companies write and post a lot of content on the website, but do not get expected outcomes.

Do you know why?

They do not SEO optimize the blogs. To attract more visitors, you have to rank higher. This can be done by optimizing:

• Blog URL
• Category
• Anchor tags
• Internal links
• External links
• Meta description

As soon as your blog post ranks in the search engine, the first thing searchers will read is the title and meta description. Thus, those two have to be noteworthy which assures the surfer will get what he needs by visiting and reading this blog post

8.      Don’t Focus on the Word Count

There are still some SEO companies which follow the conventional SEO tactics which are no longer effective. For example, having a 500 words long blog. On the other hand, some people keep a misconception that nobody reads lengthy blogs, just because they don’t.

Let me tell you an important fact.

“People do not look at the length. People look at the quality and outcome”

If you can give their preferred answer in a single word, then also it would be enough. However, it has been witnessed that nowadays people do not want only the answer to the original question. They also want to know the answers to “Why?” and “How?”

Today’s readers, which can be your customers in the future, desire to know everything you know and people do read lengthy content if it gives them the required information, adds value, or entertains them.

Thus, do not get overpowered by these norms. Do not focus on the word count. Focus on communicating with the audiences and benefiting them.

9.      CTA Must Be Relevant

CTA stands for Call to Action. CTA is written to guide your audiences to take the next step. At the end of the blog, what should they do? They should share their contact details or fill in the form or do something else. Not writing a CTA would result in loss of lead as the reader will leave the site once finished.

Generally, everyone focuses on selling, and thus, CTAs ask to fill in the contact form and raise an inquiry. However, an effective CTA gets written as per the stage of the customer in the sales funnel.

For example: if your blog is written to educate the customers, then they must be in the “Awareness” stage of the sale funnel. In this case, they would not like to raise an inquiry. They must want to know more; learn more. Thus, your CTA needs to be relevant to that. For example, asking them to download an e-book that gives more details on the subject could be a great CTA here.

10. Pro Tip: Add Your Uniqueness

This is the most important tip. Add your unique touch.

“Google loves unique content.”

Everyone ever involved with SEO knows this fact.

People misinterpret unique content with non-duplicate content. Unique content means something never covered before. Something, you know, but others do not.

This way, your readers also love unique content, don’t they?

If there are 10 articles written on the same topic. 9 out of 10 articles give the same information in different words, but there is 1 which gives a practical guide on following these tips with examples.

Which one would you like? The 10^th one, of course.

Likewise, people want to learn something new. Thus, it is necessary to write what is unique. That you have learned with your experience.

That is it! You are now pro who knows the top writing tips to write a remarkable blog post which not only ranks higher in the search engines like Google, but also engages audiences and pushes them forward in the sales funnel. If this article has evoked your interest in SEO content writing, you might like to read Regular Blogging.