There is no blog in existence that doesn't want to increase the number of visitors they're getting, and improve their audience's engagement.
If you have hundreds of visitors, why not turn them into thousands, and why not turn thousands into millions?
There's no fool proof way to drive traffic to your blog, and no automatic path to success. Despite there being no way to guarantee a successful blog, there are certain steps that can be taken to improve the quality of the content, which will in turn help increase your readership massively.
1. Utilize Online Proofreading and Editing Resources
Finding the time to write is hard enough, having time to properly edit and proofread your content is even more difficult. It's sometimes hard to see your own mistakes, and sometimes friends and family feel uncomfortable criticizing people they know.
To maintain your voice in all your work, and yet ensure the writing is fluid and eloquent, you can outsource to a qualified editor. Many sites offer such services for a varying price range.
For an online shopping kind of experience that simply requires the ticking of a few boxes, there are sites that send your requirements to a qualified and professional writer. This is a fast an effective way to outsource your editing, and it's available on sites such as UK Writings .
While this service provides great quality, they do need to be paid for, while other services provide guides to improve your writing, and therefore improve the quality of your posts. One of these guides is Australian Help , while paid and professional intensive courses in writing are also available with Academized .
Once you've finished your post, it is worth checking it for common mistakes using a website designed to pick upon errors and strengthen your writing. This can be done with the Hemingway App , and the Readability Score can assess if you're writing is too complicated or too simple.
As no online post is SEO friendly if it's under 300 words, it's worth checking the length of your post with Easy Word Count or Text Analysis tool.
2. Make a Plan and Stick To It
Your writing should have a point. Nobody enjoys reading long and rambling paragraphs that go on for pages and pages, trying to figure out the point of the article.
Your writing will be massively improved if you keep your goal in mind. Think about why you're writing and the message you're trying to convey, and you'll find that your writing is suddenly more succinct, concise and appealing in it's clarity.
While taking the time to plan might seem inconvenient, it is definitely worth your while, and you'll find yourself with more consistent content that is a much more exact representation of your brand.
Whatever objectives you have for writing are also more likely to be achieved when they're focused on, and if you're explicit in your desire. Whether that's to sign up to an email list, buy a product, or share your post to social media, people are more likely to do what they're asked directly, not what is suggested in a convoluted way.
3. Make a Good First Impression
When you're posting to a blog, it's likely that you're writing something you are passionate about, and it can be tempting to dive right into your content.
However, this does not make for good writing, as your reader won't be as initially excited about your topic as you are, it's your job as a writer to get them excited.
One of the easiest ways of doing this is to reel in your reader with a great title and a catchy opening line. While the main body of your blog post needs to be well written and cohesive, very few people will make it through all of your content unless they've been captivated by your opening.
While it's easy to forget this part of your writing, it is absolutely vital to devote as much time as necessary to your opening - without it very few people will read your whole post.
4. Focus on Your Reader
While it may go against your instincts, while your blog might be about yourself and your travels, your style, or your business, you should bear in mind that you are not your readers' priority. You should be focusing on them, on how you can help them, on why they can benefit from reading your blog.
The main character in every post is your reader, and that is a fact that every writer should remember. Once you've sucked in your reader with a great headline, you're writing with them in mind, the only job is to connect with them.
It can be difficult to come up with different topics for regular blog posts, so a great way to connect with your reader is to turn their questions and comments into blog posts, as they're literally telling you what they want from you and what they want to read.
5. Write for the Internet
Writing an essay or writing a novel requires different skills than writing for the internet. Know how to engage an internet audience with a short attention span by tailoring your writing style to a blog.
While your content needs to be high quality, you should use sub headings, short sentences, lists and bullet points where appropriate. This makes your writing easy to digest and look pleasing on a web page.
Having this format of content helps you keep readers and makes your content more likely to be shared and engaging, leading to comments and rapport between you and your audience.
While having good content is the most important part of any blog, following the above tips can help improve the quality of your posts, which will drive traffic towards your site and engage your existing audience.