Writing Engaging Blogs
Charlotte Booth • 4 October 2022
Four tips for writing effective blogs
Despite many articles discussing whether the 'blog is dead' they remain incredibly valuable assets to your business websites. Blog posts can bring new users to your site as they search for the answers to specific questions or painpoints, or simply find the title intriguing.
And who doesn't want new visitors to the website? They could stay a while and decide they would like to work with you further. However, in order for any content to work effectively you have to think carefully about what you are producing and plan the piece in advance.
There are also a few things you need to take into consideration when writing a blog;
When writing blogs for your business website, it is important to know your audience - the people who will be reading your blog. Of course you can't know exactly who will click onto the page, but you can think about who you would like to read it.
- Are they technical?
- Are they end users?
- Are they new to the industry?
- Are they male or female?
- Are they parents?
- Where are they located?
The clearer the image you have of your audience, the easier it is to get the voice right. Therefore the more questions you ask yourself about who they are the easier it will be to write with them in mind.
2 - What do you want them to take away
Before you start writing your blog it's important to know what take-away you want the reader to have. Is it the answer to a single question, or is it a deeper understanding of a particular subject?
Knowing what that one useful nugget of information you hope they will take away will help you to stay on point when writing.
If there are multiple points you want them to take away, consider writing a series of blogs.
3 - Have a clear CTA
At the end of your blog you need to make it clear what you want the reader to do - so it's important to have a clear CTA (call to action).
Do you want the reader to;
- Click on a link?
- Email you?
- Go to the website?
Whatever you want them to do, tell them. You never know they might even do it.
4 - Keep it short
There are different schools of thought on how long a blog should be. Some say a blog should be 1,000-1,200 words long for SEO purposes.
But others, myself included, think we need to remember that ultimately we are writing for our human audience and not an AI algorithm.
And people today are busy and don't like reading long things. Be honest, how often do you read articles where you have to scroll more than two or three times? Do you tend to read a couple of paragraphs and move on?
So will the majority of people coming to the site.
If people don't reach the end, they won't see your CTA and will do their own thing - which will be to skip to another website.
So, keep to the point, don't waffle and keep your objective and audience in mind.
If you would be interested in a workshop about writing effective blogs drop me an email
or comment below for details.
Why do rage posts get lots of engagement? How do you channel that into everything you write?
There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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