Content is the key to success of a blog - it is already proved and thousands of pages have already been written on this topic by many expert bloggers.
They repeatedly told that there is nothing but content that separates a great blog from the rest. It is primarily because of the great content provides quality substance to engage targeted people on your blog and they get value from it.
Secret Of Providing Great Blog Content
If you carefully notice a few of successful blogs of your interest, you will discover that the secret of their success lies in mainly two things -
- They produce compelling and engaging content on a consistent basis over time.
- They use their own unique style that separates them from others.
Now, how do you blog, it will solely depend on you - This may vary from blogger to blogger as each blogger has the right to use his or her own style and new style is always appreciated and effective - however there are some basic principles of producing great blog content that you might consider while producing content for your own blog.
Know Your Strength
Before heading a start analyze your strength. What are the pluses (strong points) do you have that you think worthy sharing with others. Try to list all of them. Build your long term plan and work accordingly based on your strength.
If you overlook your strength at the start, you might loss your control in the middle. Natural tendency of a new blogger is to achieve quick success by any means. It prompts him to run after all possible sources of traffic, revenue and contacts. In the process he might loss his focus.
If you know your strength, you will be in full control. If you have control, you can organize your plan, set your goals and can work accordingly to achieve them. You will be always in right direction and never get lost in the middle.
Otherwise you will loose your control putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. This situation is not ideal for a new blogger to grow and build.
Become Expert On Your Topic
Why do people visit certain blogs?
People visit certain blogs where
- They find value
- They find relevant and quality information
- They find proper solutions to certain problems
- They find fresh new idea
- They find motivation
- They find direction
- and you can add more in the list …
A blog gets continuous flow of targeted visitors if it provides all of the above consistently over time.
So, whichever niche topic you decide to blog about, you need to provide all of the above to your tageted audience. It is possible if you are expert in that topic. A bunch of articles on scattered topics don’t help you in any way unless they are useful to your targeted audience.
So, it is recommended that you spend some time to research on topic that you like or want to contribute on your blog. Examin which content you really appreciate as a reader. After investigating, if you find that you could come out with more improved version and easy to acceptable solution with proper analysis and clarification and justify your contribution to be benificial to your readers, then go ahead. Be ready to start your long blogging journey.
You as a blogger should publish information that people enjoy reading, get solutions to their problems, get fresh new idea to motivate themselves and get proper direction towards their success. Above all, you should work like an institute dedicated to educate real people on your own domain.
Look At Your Content From Your Reader’s Point Of View
Put yourself in place of your readers. Try to find out what as a reader you want to get from your blog.
- Do you enjoy reading your own content?
- Does your content useful?
- Do you get inspired?
- Does it really educate yourself?
- Is it able to solve a real problem?
- Is it able to provide fresh new idea?
- Is it able to translate new thought process?
- Does your content encourage interactions?
- Do you want to come here again to see how the next post is going to solve another issue?
If you get positive answers to all of the above questions, then you are on the right track.
Build Expectations In Your Visitor’s Mind
As a blogger your task is not just producing great content randomly. Come out with strong, interesting and engaging content with clear solutions to specific problems.
If you need a series of blog posts rather than a single post to explain a certain topic on your blog, do it without hesitation, it would be even better for your blog. Your reader will be eagerly waiting for the next post of the series to know your next idea. As a result, it will build expectation in your readers mind. Your visitors will be looking forward for more and it will improve repeat visits to your blog.
For example, lets take this post.
It is the 2nd post in the series. This series is dedicated to Blog Content Strategy. In the previous post I explained how to select great blog topics and this post is all about how to write great blog content. Similarly I will come out with another aspect of blog content strategy in the next post.
So, from this example, it is clearly evident that you will get not just detail understanding of blog content strategy but also my point of view on it. It will surely create your expectation and you will eagerly wait for the next post to come.
This effort not only create great blog content relevant to the topic but also attract same visitors to repeat his or her visit to my blog.
Create Blog Content For Your Readers, Not For Search Engines
People like good content, not keywords stuffing. If your content is full of keywords, it will not be an interesting, problem solving and mind blowing content. It might rank well in major search engines, but people will refuge to consume it.
So, create your blog content for the benefit of your readers not for search engines. They are all human beings and your content should focus on providing real information to them. Keywords will come in natural way into your content if you concentrate on producing content for real people.
Don’t Be Just A Blogger, Be A Curator
Blog is not just about writing good content. I already told you that a successful blogger is percieved as an expert in his domain. If he is not, he has to be. Otherwise people will not listen to him.
As a blogger, your task is not just to edcate your people or provide interesting fresh new content but to give away little more to them.
Random knowledge is not going to do any favour to your readers though they are good and informative. You should also provide complete guidance to your readers. They will know from you what is the next to learn that is appropriate and what are the things that need to be learnt so that they get proper direction towards succes in your own domain. If you can do it, your succes is inevitable.
Just think beyond blogging, educate your people on your blog for the future to come.
Your friend the business
Debabrata Dhar
