Ambitious companies and entrepreneurs understand that achieving online visibility is one of the most effective ways to generate leads, build brand awareness and ultimately grow revenue. But it’s almost impossible to achieve with a static website.

Most content marketers will preach the importance of posting regular content. But creating content is one thing; creating content that counts is much more challenging. That’s why many companies start a blog but quickly run out of steam as they fail to gain traction and cultivate new ideas.

What’s the secret behind high-quality blog content?

We often get asked this question and the simple answer is the perfect combination of data insight and human creativity – not one vs the other.

Having a data-backed, human-centric approach is particularly important during an economic crisis when marketing budgets are being cut. It’s certainly not a good time for churning out content with blind faith!

The most successful online content needs to be educational, engaging and aligned to a strategic purpose. And for modest marketing teams with modest budgets, ROI needs to be measured to justify the time spent on creating content.

Most marketing agencies, in-house teams and professionals are well versed in putting together content roadmaps. However, in order to grow your website’s traffic and online rankings organically, a blog requires much more thought than plotting key dates and milestones on a calendar.

Here are a few top tips – key to a blog’s success – which are often neglected…

1. Know your audience inside out

Before investing time and money in creating content, you need to define exactly who your blog post is for, and why they’ll be interested. If you’re confident about your audience, and the pain points they are facing, you’ll be able to structure your blog post accordingly.

Identifying your ideal customer profile and addressing their problems is also crucial for cutting through the noise of hundreds of competing posts, all being shared at the same time, on the same social media feeds.

We understand how difficult it can be to persuade decision-makers to invest in your content plans. That’s why data is so important. Our in-house AI experts have made it their mission to give smaller marketing teams a much bigger voice and this all starts with a data-backed strategy.

What does your audience want to read about? How often do they want to hear from you? And how do they want you to communicate?

The unique software we’ve developed to decode Google algorithms, means that subject matter for online content, its frequency and tone of voice, no longer need to be a guessing game.

As well as producing results, knowing your audience allows you to demonstrate your industry-expertise, give original insight and be authentic.

2. Don’t save the best bits ‘til last

Regardless of how many hours we spend crafting each piece of content, the average person spends 37 seconds reading a blog post. So, considering you have just over half a minute to get across your message, the headline is arguably as important as the article itself.

Most visitors simply skim through a blog rather than reading each sentence, but they’ll only do so if the headline compels them enough to start scrolling. And if there’s no scrolling, there’s no engagement.

So, what makes a good headline and opening paragraph? BuzzFeed’s most-viewed posts from 2019 give a flavour of the sort of content that makes us tick. And the skill of starting strongly.

As well as offering a unique angle, here’s a few more pointers to make sure your content is unmissable:

• Promote your keywords – while there’s more to SEO than just keywords, they are a powerful tool when used correctly
• Give insight early on about what the post is about – we all want to know upfront what we’re going to learn by reading on
• Create a sense of urgency – convince your reader why it’s worth their time

3. It’s more than just the words

As well as mastering the art of a strong headline and opener – imagery is a powerful way of engaging readers and sustaining their attention. In fact, according to a recent report, a third of us rely on visual stimulation to determine what we consume.

A study from the Technical University of Denmark suggests our global attention span is narrowing due to the sheer amount of information being presented to us.

Reading line after line of text can get very tiring and will force people elsewhere, driving up dreaded bounce rates. And so, it’s in your interest to break up the page with imagery and use infographics to illustrate your points.

How data-driven tools are assisting digital agencies

Since launching, inflo.Ai has seen a surge of interest from content marketing agencies who are using our data-driven tool as a complementary part of their services – a means to sense-check content and stay up-to-date with Google’s changing algorithms.

“Through inflo.Ai we have been able to proactively optimise our content to follow the latest SEO trends and seamlessly repurpose archived content on behalf of our clients,” says Richard Lucas, Managing Director at content marketing agency, Eleven.

Through the integrated platform, Eleven provide clients with ongoing support. Reoptimising content on their site has led to significant increase in engagement.

One of Eleven’s clients has seen a 46% monthly increase in clicks and a 24% monthly increase in impressions.

“We have seen an increase in ranking since we have been using inflo.Ai for the blogs, which is fantastic and ultimately what we wanted to achieve,” said Richard.

The agency also uses the tool to carry out full content audits for many B2B companies and support them with refreshing and republishing older content.

Eleven works with technology, fashion and the professional services, demonstrating how high-quality blog content can effectively engage stakeholders, generate leads and attract talent.

Blogging is a science and a craft

Whatever kind of business you run, gaining an understand of your audience and how your product fits their needs is crucial. Your blog is an extension of that: how does your blog reach your target audience, provide them with useful information and draw them into your sales pipeline?

At a time when online visibility has never been more important, an effective data-driven blog can be the difference between success and failure.

Interested in growing your business through effective blog content? Book a demo with inflo.Ai today to find out more.

Title image by Free-Photos from Pixabay