How to Allow Your Blog’s Content to Do it’s Job

So you’ve been writing a heap of content lately?

You’re publishing posts once, twice maybe even 3 times a week and not seeing the results that excite you?  Your content isn’t doing it’s job. WTF to that!

Well, don’t be so eager to blame your content (god, you’re so mean), it’s only one factor in the grand scheme of it being able to perform it’s duties.  That’s right, there are many other factors!

What are those factors? Well, you need to enable your content, support it and allow it to do it’s job.  Here’s what you need to do…

Discover the purpose / call to action

Ok, I’ve covered this way too many times but I won’t skip it – what do you want people to do when they land on your website?

You wrote the post so people would visit and read it, now what?  You need to give them a call to action, and there are many common options I recommend picking from:

  • Subscribe to an Email Newsletter – you want people to come back, get used to you and trust you, starting an email newsletter is the best way to go about this (far superior to social media or RSS).  Statistics show that Email is the most effective tool for greater sales.
  • Sell something – so you have a product you want to sell? Maybe it’s yours or someone else’s, either way if this is your primary goal I still recommend you consider the previous option, but make it easy for people to do this also.  If you have affiliates then you may want to make this primary.
  • Share your post – you might be trying to build traffic without email list or trying to send social signals to improve your SEO.  Either way, this is another solid call to action – get some share buttons on your website.

Realistically, you can do all of the above but pick one primary purpose. Then you simply have to ‘convert’ those visitors and make them act on your call to action.

Advertise your call to action

Your call to action (as discussed above) needs to be easy to find at any given time – before the article is read and after it.  I recommend having a section below your content which makes this easy to find and acts as a ‘next step’ because people will be searching for what to do next when they’ve finished reading.

Building upon that, I recommend making early mention of your Call to Action on your ‘Home’ Page and ‘About’ Page, because people will investigate you and your website if they like what they’ve read.  They  want validation and want to know if you’re to be trusted.

Don’t be aggressive and over do it, you’ll just come across as an aggressive moron shouting “buy my thing!!” and people will avoid you like the rambling homeless man on the corner.

Ask people in plain English in your conclusion (or even during your post) “please sign up to my email newsletter” or “share this article if you found it helpful by clicking here”.  Encourage those people who appreciate your work.  It’s all about conversion.

Offer quality

If you do everything I just mentioned above and offer complete shite for content, people aren’t going to be impressed.  They’ll bounce and you’ll get nothing over and over again.  Like a small kid crying over his dropped his ice cream in the dirt – you’ll be crushed, crying and calling for you mum.

People came to your website because you enticed them with the promise of delivering quality – giving them the information they need, solving their problem and if you’re really a rock star, surpassing expectation.  They won’t want to forget your awesome resource, so they’ll find a way to stay connected or learn more – that’s when you dangle that call to action in front of them like a candy bar…

…That’s the power of quality.

Write with passion

If people believe your Justin Bieber site is written by a 12 year old girl crazy for him, you’ll know she’s pouring everything into her words.  She’s hoping Justin reads them!

You want the same effect without coming across as a 12 year old girl (’cause that’s bad for business).  If you create this feeling that you’re just pumping out text because “you have to” then it will be boring, uninspiring and your readers will be the 40 year old dad of the girl watching the Justin Bieber concert with her – bored shitless.

At least your visitors can leave – and they will.

So be yourself, get excited about your writing and your words as an opportunity to reach hundreds, thousands or even millions.  Amplify your personal voice and really get people on your side.

Make it easy on the eyes

We’re not talking about eye candy, we’re talking about making things legible.

Use short sentences, break things up with sub headings, images and use of bold & italics.  The goal is to make things not only easy to read by scannable, so people log onto your website and find exactly what they’re after.

I went into much more detail on this topic, because it’s so exciting (lol, not) – read about it here!

Make it quick to load!

Slow and steady wins the race, right? Not these days, people want instant gratification and you’ve gotta deliver in under 2 seconds!

That’s not a joke either.

Statistics show that people are already yawning and dozing off by the 2 second mark if things aren’t loading fast enough.  So choose a reputable host and follow some of these steps to speed up your WordPress website.

Don’t overlook this one, if the page doesn’t load then no one will even glance at your awesome content, you’ll be crying again like the 40 year old at the Bieber concert.  Harsh words, but true.

Make it easy to find

Get in their face! Well, not aggressively.

Don’t put your slider and bunch of crap no one wants to see (seriously, they don’t) above your content, make sure your content is right in front of them when they land. Above the fold and the easiest thing on the page to find.

This means you’ve gotta make sure your page header (logo and navigation in most cases) shouldn’t be the entirety of the screen on your post pages. Put feature boxes or (god forbid) slideshows on the homepage – make content pages for content.

Visitors came to your site looking for content, give it to them and put your hand out (call to action) afterwards.

You’ve got to promote it!

Finally, people need to actually know your content exists in order to see it.

Don’t be the guy with the fruit stand on out on the highway waiting for business when one car goes past every 3 days.  Set yourself up in the busy street and get people’s attention.

This means that once you publish:

  • Email your subscribers
  • Post to Facebook / Twitter / Google Plus
  • Try other social avenues like Reddit, StumbleUpon or Digg
  • Email other bloggers who may be interested in your post, ask them to share it if they like it (maybe share some of their stuff beforehand)
  • Definitely contact your personal network to share it around if you want it to go far
  • Try some paid marketing options

Of course, from there there’s another way to reach more people….

Make it easy to Share!

If people like your writing they may want to share it around, so make that easy.

Get the SumoMe app and install ‘Share’, you’ll get a cool line up of share buttons down the left side of the browser window (of bottom of the page on phones). This will also enhance your social signals for SEO and bring even more traffic.

Get people talking and your post will reach very far!

Anything else?

That’s the guts of it, but there may be other things you can do to enhance your content.  This all depends on your content, your niche and your website.

The idea is that your content shows up quickly, is easy to find and easy to read whilst being packed with quality information, then make sure it converts by projecting a clear call to action.

This should help you take your content to the next level, I also recommend reading my Blog Post Checklist for Growth and Traffic, it will help you better understand what works on the web these days.

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