8.5 Ways to Make Your Marketing Blog Rock


Strategy

Content building and SEO keywords aside, let’s face it: Your prime objective is to have your marketing blogs read. You’re a writer, and writers need readers willing to volunteer for enlightenment, inspiration, education, and entertainment. So let’s get down to how you can maximize blogging best practices to move more eyeballs left-to-right, and top-to-bottom.

 

.5: Write Headlines with Hooks

If the headline above read “8 Ways…” you might have written it off as yet another cookie-cutter how-to blog headline. But that “.5” triggered a little curiosity, didn’t it? Spend time on your headlines and craft them to inspire readership. Take a few lessons from those pesky clickbait headlines. You know you’ve fallen for more than one because they make you curious enough to investigate further.

8.5 Ways to Make Your Marketing Blog Rock

 

1.5: Keep Readers Engaged

This happens within that first magic line of body copy. Immediately hit readers over the head with whatever nuggets of wisdom you’re peddling. Promise them benefits.

As you write your blog content, consider your favorite authors and take lessons from the ways in which they write. They’re masters at dropping a trail of breadcrumbs that readers eagerly follow and feast upon, so try to do the same with your blog writing for maximum marketing impact.

 

2.5: In Brief

Humans have evolved to have snippet attention spans. Keep it simple. Dole out your content in short, easily-digested portions.

 

3.5: Conversate

One of the best blogging tips is to write in a conversational style. Know your customer and imagine sitting across from them at a Starbucks. Speak their language with cool confidence. Readers find ease in a conversational tone that’s authentic, friendly, and helpful.

 

4.5 Active Voice

Avoid writing in the passive voice with all your brand blogging.

This does two wonderful things. First, it almost always makes your sentences shorter. And shorter is better. Second, by writing in the active voice, your words will carry more promotional and persuasive power. Need some help?  The Writing Center from UW-Madison has a nice resource to review for active vs. passive voice writing.

 

5.5: Zesty Adjectives

A concise marketing blog for your brand, written in the active voice, is like the foundational structure of a house. Once built, you as the blog builder can go back in and add the fru-fru (curtains, artwork, stuff like that) in the form of colorful adjectives, clever similes, and weighty metaphors. They’ll snazz-up your blog and forge stronger relationships with your readers.

 

6.5: Capture Your Brand

As a blog writer, you naturally have your own sense of style. Embrace it, but always be mindful that you represent your brand in all the marketing content you create. By ensuring that your tone matches your brand’s voice and that you have all your search keywords covered, you can’t miss out on writing a fine blog.

 

7.5: Get Personal

You’ll build bonds with readers in lasting ways when you share a little something special about yourself. Whether it’s an opinion you have about the blog content or a challenge you have personally overcome, it can strike a strong chord with your readers and customers. I personally get a “writer’s high” when a comment comes in that proves my content has resonated with a reader.

 

8.5: Proof Out Loud

After striking the final period on a piece, don’t post it. Not yet. It’s imperative to proof it carefully for any mistakes. Even a slight grammatical error can erode your relationship with your reader/customer. When you do proofread, do it by reading OUT LOUD. That will help you determine that your blog has an authentic, conversational flow and feeling. Edit anything that comes off as sounding contrived or clunky, then send it out to the world and let it build your brand.

 

On behalf of everyone at Leighton Interactive, I hope these blogger tips help elevate your content marketing strategy to new levels. Blogging is the most direct pipeline you have with your customers, so we encourage you to write well, write often, and have fun doing it.

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