What are some elements of a successful blog post?
When writing a blog post, you want it to be captivating and, most importantly, helpful to your audience. You, however, also want it to perform well in search engines.
To avoid your blog post being buried among the billions of blog posts on the internet, you must include some essential elements that will hook the reader and impress the search engines.
Here are some must-have elements of a successful blog post.
1. Catchy Headline
I like to think of a blog post headline as the start of an interview. In the first 30 seconds of the interview, the goal is to make an excellent first impression and make the interviewer like you.
In fact, it is said the interviewer makes their decision within the first minute.
It is the same as the headline of a blog post; with it, you want to quickly achieve the following:
- Give a clear indication of what the blog is all about,
- Pull the readers to move the introduction of the post.
For these reasons, be sure to make it as magnetic as possible.
Read: How I landed my first freelance writing client without buying any courses
2. Captivating Introduction
According to Penji, readers spend approximately 37 seconds per blog post(1).
People skim through the post to find the information they want. However, as a writer, you want the reader to spend more time on your posts and possibly read other blog posts.
You can only achieve this if your introduction hooks the reader and makes them scroll down.
Here are some essential tips of writing a compelling introduction:
- Do not take ages beating around the bush; get to the point as quickly as you can,
- Have just enough build-up to get the readers moving to the next topic.
Read: 10 Ways to Write a Magnetic Blog Post Introduction.
3. Subheadings
Never have huge chunks of words or paragraphs without subheadings in between.
First, breaking down your content and having everything under subheadings makes your work easy on the eye.This is good for readers who want to skim through quickly and find the information they are looking for.
If a reader realizes that your blog post is just a huge chunk of words, they will most likely leave immediately.
Remember, you are writing a blog post and not a novel.
Secondly, well-written and valuable subheadings are good for SEO. For Instance, Yoast recommends having at most 300 words under each subheading.
4. Highly Informative Body
The body of a blog post comes right under the introduction. It is where your readers find all the answers they are looking for. You, therefore, want to make sure the body is informative and engaging as possible.
Here is how to make your blog post’s body informative:
- Strive to answer the when, how, why, who, and where questions,
- Make good use of the keywords without being robotic.
- Ensure you subdivide it into subheadings.
Related: Beginner-friendly Upwork alternatives for writers
5. Relevant Internal Links
The goal of relevant internal links is to have your readers stick around your website for longer.
Think of internal links as a free lead to your other posts.
For instance, if you are a shoe seller, and you happen to make one post online advertising a black pair of shoes in a specific size, and even make sales while at it. But, some people will be interested in a brown version of shoes instead; you can only make sales to them if you show or tell them about the shoes; they don’t have to ask for it.
Internal linking works this way. If you are writing a blog post about “the best beach destinations in Africa,” your target audience is tourists and travelers. In this category, some may be interested in your already written post, “best safari destinations in Africa.” And they will only find it if you interlink them.
Tip: Internal links are more successful if they are relevant to your blog post(2).
6. A Call-to-Action
Call-to-actions take different forms. It all depends on what you want your readers to do.
- Do you want to hear their opinions? You should ask them to comment below.
- If you want them to make purchases of a service or product, then do so by redirecting them to the service page.
A great call-to-action may help you:
- Keep in touch with your readers,
- Generate more leads,
- Make sales of products and services.
7. A Good Meta Description
Think of a meta description as a movie trailer; you get to see a snippet of what happens before you get to the actual thing.
A meta description is a short(usually one or two sentences) yet a detailed representation of what your blog post entails. It is what Google shows the readers on their search results before they click to read your blog.
If you are using WordPress, you can use Yoast plugin to craft a good meta description.
If you do not have one, Google may select a small part of your post and use it as a meta description. This is a bad thing because sometimes it does select the perfect representation of your post.
8. Appealing Imagery and graphic Imagery
Images in your blog posts serve the following purposes:
- Break the monotony of huge text chunks,
- Help illustrate your points further,
- Help readers stay longer on your site, which is good for Google ranking.
You want to include graphics through your text and a featured image, which readers can see before clicking to open your article.
9. Lists
Always include lists(in bullet points) in all blog posts you write.
A list helps:
- Improve the overall readability of a document,
- Offer quick information to readers who want to skim through your post,
- Draw attention to the essential parts of a blog post.
10. External Links
Adding authoritative external links to your blog post boosts its credibility.
They provide your readers with credible information, which improves the entire site’s credibility.
Secondly, external linking is suitable for your SEO. Search engines will rank your posts higher if you get information from reliable sources.
Always add reliable and authoritative external links to any blog post you write.
Final Thoughts
It is time to call it wraps for the essential elements of a blog post.
If you want a high-performing post, be sure to include all these ten aspects. This way, you can offer your readers the best value possible while still appealing to the search engine.
As we put all this down now, feel free to comment. We would be glad to hear what elements you love to include in your blog post.
