Award-winning tips for writing a blog
Catherine Bowden - 1 May 2019
This year Wagada are sponsoring the Best Blogger Award at the 2019 Best Business Women Awards (entries are open now and close on Monday 1st July 2019). As it’s a new category this year, we thought it would be worth sharing our best blogging tips as it’s something we help our clients with on a daily basis. Without further ado, here are our best blog tips:
1. Understand your audience and their preferences
It’s obvious isn’t it? But without having a clear understanding of what makes your audience tick – who they are, what they are interested in, and how they interact online – it’s going to be difficult, or nigh on impossible to connect with them through your blog. So, research their likes, dislikes, absolute no-no’s and most importantly the things that make them (and you) happy.
A good place to start when writing a blog is to question what the user is wanting to know. What is the main query or question they are asking? This will give you an insight into user intent, and means you can make sure you are answering everything they want to know and in the most appropriate/effective way you can for maximum effect.
2. SEO
There’s a strong correlation between providing fresh, regular content in the form of a well optimised blog and SEO performance. Begin the optimisation process by doing some keyword research. Once you’ve looked over our first tip and have worked out what your reader wants to know, its important to know how they are searching for it! Don’t forget to include internal links to and from your blog, going from relevant service pages or to other blogs.
3. Images
The use of images is a must! Be they infographics, graphs, bling, head and shoulders or even product shots. They help to give the reader an immediate idea of the topic you will be covering and any images should enhance the copy and draw the reader in, so they keep reading until the end. Ensure they are relevant, eye catching and large enough to see clearly what’s going on in the picture, and don’t forget to add alt tags to you pictures as part of your SEO.
4. Use subheadings and bullet points
A bit like the use of images, the content should be broken down to include subheadings or bullets – rather than trying to bamboozle readers with a wodge of text. You want to avoid losing your readership half way through if you try and subsume them with words. Relevant subheadings make the text much easier to navigate, and generally makes it seem much less intimidating to read! If you’re including any lists in your blog, bullet points will make them easy to read.
5. Length of blog
Blog wordcounts are often down to personal preference and dependent on the topic in hand. As a general rule of thumb, we go with 500 words as a minimum, with the exception of potentially more ‘company news’ type blogs which may be slightly less.
However, clearly some topics don’t or won’t necessarily lend themselves to a super-short article – take Brexit, as an example! Don’t be afraid to write a long, juicy blog with 1000+ words. If there is a topic that requires a lot of explanation or if there is a lot to talk about (like this blog for instance!), you may need a longer length to cover all basis and ensure you are really answering your reader’s queries. As long you as aren’t waffling and make the content easy to read and navigate, there will always be a place for lengthy blogs.
On the opposite end of the scale, don’t force the words if you feel like you have covered everything you need to say. Like with most things, quality always trumps quantity when it comes to blog writing.
6. Tone of voice
By its very nature, a blog and its tone should be chatty or conversational. It’s about creating a relevant voice designed to target your audience in an engaging way. The whole gamut of your blog’s delivery should be addressed through your tone of voice and what it communicates to your audience.
7. Share on social media
Once your blog post has gone live it’s time to get sharing! Share an enticing post with a link to your blog across all your social media channels for maximum exposure. We find that adding in an image to the post rather than leaving in the automatically generated preview helps increase engagement. Encourage your followers to comment, like and share the post to generate some discussion around your blog, making them want to come back for more!
8. Create your next blog post
Once your blog post has gone live, start thinking about the next one! Regularly updating your blog will not only boost your SEO, but will give your readers more opportunity to engage with you and your brand. It can help enhance your profile, grow your brand, awareness and credibility. There is a huge community surrounding the blogging world, which potentially can open numerous doors for you.
9. Celebrate your success
What better way to acknowledge your achievements than by entering the Best Blogger Awards at this year’s Best Business Women Awards 2019? There are a number of reasons for entering awards alongside the obvious ones. They can help support your SEO strategy due to potential backlinks, help boost awareness of your blog and simply give you a chance to step back, consider and share your successes.
So, there we have it – 9 award winning tips for writing a blog! We’d love to hear how you get on putting our tips into practise, and feel free to get in touch for further advice. We look forward to meeting everyone at the awards in October and best of luck!
