We've already talked a little bit about blogging and posting articles to boost your website's overall search engine optimization, but how do you do you come up with relevant content that is fresh and unique as well as enticing?
Content ultimately rules the internet. I mean without content, what use would the internet be anyways? Search engines like Google, love content. Content plays a big part in determining your ranking and how the search engines index your website. They also love fresh content, so continually updating your website through a blog is a sure way to get Google’s love, and who couldn’t use a little loving from Google.
Sounds pretty easy huh? Well, honestly it’s a little easier said than done. We get carried away with our work day and just can’t seem to find the time do it, and when you finally do, you end sitting at the computer screen for hours and can’t seem to come up with anything to write or talk about.
So how do you come up with fresh content? Well, there are a few different methods I use myself that I have found work in the past and help in the brainstorming process as well as the final delivery.
First off, you’re going to want to post about things that are relevant to your business or customers. You will want to gear your articles or blogs towards what your business does and is all about. A good way to come up with ideas for articles is to use keywords. If your website already had some SEO work done, chances are you have a list of keywords somewhere and have highlighted keywords that will help your overall ranking. Go back to that list and highlight words or phrases that you think could make for an interesting article. This is a great way to aid in figuring out what to write about. More than likely, there’s going to be several topics in there to get your brain going. Plus, it is much easier to use those keywords you want search engines to see when you follow this process; so you can kill two birds with one stone.
If you still can’t seem to come up with anything there’s some other options you can try out. A blog doesn’t have to always be lengthy and the most amazing post ever; so just talk about what has been going on in your business, what you have accomplished, who you’ve been doing business with, any competitions or giveaways, new products and services you’re offering, ect. Just a short, quick post about what’s been going on let’s your followers know you haven’t fallen of the face of earth and care for them. Another method to try out is just to Google topics relating to your business. If you’re a web design company, just Google “web design articles” and go from there. Be sure not to copy or plagiarize someone else’s work. You will just want to use their post as a starting point, be sure to give credit to them where needed if this is the case. A lot of times I won't even read their article, just the title so I can be sure that my content is fresh and unique. Other easy posts could be a simple “How to……” article that will fill in your followers on all your little secrets, kind of like this post.
If nothing seems to be working, then forget about it for awhile and resume your day. Something is bound to pop in your head sooner or later.
If all else fails, you can resort to posting other articles people have written. Make sure to give them credit and provide a link back to the original post as well as let the original author know you’re going to use their content on your blog or post. Be careful though, as some articles might be copyrighted, so it’s a good idea to let them know beforehand your intentions. But more than likely, they won’t mind as long as it’s not copyrighted because it will get their name out there.
Once you actually start writing, you’ll want to make sure to include relevant keywords to your website. This will help your SEO and lets the search engine giants know your posting fresh content and they will index you for those keywords you use over and over.
For example, if you are a website design company and you are talking about websites you’ll want to make sure instead of saying “site” you say “website” as this is probably one of your keywords and you want to be indexed for “website” over “site”.
Having a unique tone and perspective will help draw you’re followers in and keep them reading. No one wants to hear a bland article that isn’t interesting and has no voice. It’s just like that professor with that dull, monotone voice that drives you up a wall, and ultimately made you skip that class regularly. Two articles could be identical in topic, but the one that has the most personality is always going to win. Acquiring a good voice and perspective can be hard, so if you’re struggling with that, just try to throw in a little joke here or there. A bad joke is better than no joke.
Another method is to make comparisons. Similes and metaphors can go miles and also help your followers relate on a more personal level to what you’re talking about. Comparisons also help users understand content on a much clearer basis, especially if your content is referring to something complex like web design that your average Joe wouldn’t understand.
Article titles go a long way. You’ll want to come up with a clever title that entices your viewer to click the link and continue reading. This is one of the key aspects of article and blog postings. Something unique will make the viewer curious as to what the post is about. Generally, this is the last thing I do in my article writing process. It’s much easier to come up with an enticing title after having written all of your content.
Much like titles, summaries are just as important. This lets the viewer know what the post is about and ultimately is the deciding factor in whether they decide to continue reading on. You’ll want to make the summary short, sweet, and to the point while still grabbing their attention.
Before posting your article, it is a good idea to provide links to your website as well as providing links to any sources and an info/contact link.
If you’re article is going to be posted out to multiple article websites, you’ll want to verify ahead of time how many links each article website allows in the body and bio of your article so you do not waste all your time posting out articles to only have them rejected.
To help in this step, I made an excel document listing all the websites I was interested in posting to and made a column for the Google and Alexa ranking of each page as well as columns for how many links each website allows in the body and one for how many links each allows in the bio. This way, you can set up your article with the proper amount of links for each site.
Posting to lots of article websites can be a timely process. To help speed things up, before I actually go and start posting out my article, I format the article in Word and place the hyperlinks on the keywords that I want linked back to my site. However, not all sites have a system that will allow links in Word to copy over and be linked. So I also set up a document that uses html for the links. This way I can always just copy and paste and not have to go in and write any html or hyperlink for every single link on every new post.
If you’re not sure how to use html to write a link, it’s pretty simple. Just follow this setup:
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com">word or phrase here</a>
This will take your viewer directly to the specified page.
I personally cannot stand when I’m on a web page and I click a link and it doesn’t open up in a new tab, so much so that I almost always right click and hit “open in new tab” for just about every link. But that’s just me. If you want it to open in a new tab, just use this html code instead of the previous one:
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com " target="_blank">word or phrase here</a>
In the html, where it says “words or phrase here”, you will just type in what you what the link to say.
If you do not have a blog section on your website, it would be a very beneficial idea to set one up. Blogs can even be set up, so once you post a blog on your website, it will automatically post out to your Facebook, twitter, and other social media sites with the click of a button.
Posting blogs and articles takes a little bit of practice, knowledge, and wit. You’ll be sure to grasp the hang of it shortly.
Need a blog page or want it to automatically post out to your social media websites? 10 Pound Gorilla can help you set up a professional looking blog that is easy to use.