Blogging has evolved over the years.
At first, you just needed to have a blog. It really didn’t matter if your blogs were poorly written or functioned only to cram as many keywords in it as possible.
Then, you needed to have a quality blog. Search engines began to focus more on high quality, valuable posts over keyword stuffing. So content creators had to refocus on writing content that would be of value to their audience.
Today, you still need to be writing high-quality blogs that are valuable to your audience. However, you also need to write blogs that are socially shareable.
Today, part of writing a successful blog means your blog needs to succeed on social media. And, we don’t mean deciding that your blog strategy is to “go viral.” This means optimizing your blog post so that it stands out in social feeds, entices your followers to read more and is so engaging that readers want to click share after they’ve read it!
If you want to make your blog posts share-worthy, make sure they have these 8 components!
1. A fantastic blog post title
Titles are what sell your blog post. If your title is not clear or exciting, then followers won’t click to read your blog, no matter how many times you share it!
In order for any blog title to be compelling, you need to know your ideal audience and what matters to them. What information do they value? What is important to their goals? What type of language resonates with them? Once you know these things, you are much better equipped to create a perfect blog post title.
If you’re still feeling stuck, then start with a working title. For example, one of our blog posts might be “How To Improve Your Social Media Strategy.” From there, you can test a few different tried and true tactics to find the best blog post title.
Numbered Lists
Numbered lists are one of the most popular blog post title formulas because readers love the specificity of numbers. They know exactly what they’ll get out of reading your post!
Try alliteration
Alliteration adds a little something extra to your title because it’s fun to read and it can pack a punch on selling your point. The working title “How to Improve Your Social Media Strategy” could turn into “The Foolproof Formula for a Successful Social Media Strategy.” It gets the point across while being a little bit more entertaining.
Use strong language
Whether it’s negative or positive, strong language can communicate the value of a blog post much better than passive language. Some examples of positive language include:
Brilliant
Outrageous
Steal-Worthy
Exceptional
Phenomenal
For our working title “How to Improve Your Social Media Strategy” you could change this to “How To Create a Phenomenal Social Media Strategy.”
2. Subheaders
Using subheaders and breaking your post up into sections makes it easier for your readers to consume your post. It breaks up the post so that it’s more visually appealing and shorter sections make your post easier to digest.
It also makes your blog easier for those who are just skimming your blog, which is probably more people than you think. Data tells us that most people don’t read entire articles these days. According to research by Sumo, only 20% of people will read your entire article.
That means 80% of readers are simply scanning your articles for the main points!
Breaking up your post gives your scanners an easier way to locate the most important parts of your blog and are able to get value from it, even if they don’t read every single word.
3. Well researched facts and stats
People read blogs because they want to learn something and they want to trust that they are learning credible information. In a post-Facebook scandal, “fake news” world, people are hesitant to trust sources online.
Using statistics and research-based facts is the number one way to show you are a source of credible information. It shows that you are willing to do the research (so your audience doesn’t have to). Also, stats can justify the point you are trying to make. Your point will come across stronger and more credible when backed up by research.
4. Your own take and some personality
No one will want to share your blog if all you do is reshare information from someone else’s blog without providing anything insightful or helpful yourself.
You don’t need to use original data or create your own experiments but you should share your own experiences and your own ideas in your blog. Because your blog should provide your readers with something they can’t find anywhere else.
You can add your own anecdotes that provide context for a specific statistic or that reinforce a claim.
And don’t forget to share your personality! Whether it’s snarky, aspirational or educational, adding in your own brand voice will make your content more relatable to your audience.
5. Create Quote-Ables
What are quote-ables? They’re quote-worthy parts of your blog, of course! Highlight specific quotes can be an easy way to get your audience to share your blogs.
There are two easy ways to do this. The first is to create a quote image that is shareable on social media. There are many tools that allow you to easily share your blogs on social media and will pull featured images like quote images.
Another way to use quote-ables is to use Click to Tweet. This is a free tool that makes it easy for your readers to quickly share your link and message on their social media accounts with just a few clicks! Create “Click to Tweets” for your most important quotes or for your favorite statistics to start generating social shares.
6. Images
Blogs with images receive 94% more views than blogs without images. Our eyes are naturally drawn to images over text and we actually process images much faster than text so using images to demonstrate a point is preferred by readers. We’ve already explained that most people are scanners so images help them scan faster so they can determine the valuable parts of the blog.
Images also cause a natural break in texts so that the article appears more easily digestible for the reader.
7. Shareable social media posts
If you want people to share your blog, then the best way is to start sharing it on social media yourself! Creating click-worthy social media posts that promote your blog will help drive traffic and increase social shares.
You should test different headlines, pull quotes and descriptions of your blog to determine which is most effective at driving traffic and shares.
MeetEdgar makes it extremely easy to share your blog and test different combinations with the variations and autovariations tools.
You can create multiple variations promoting a single blog post to share on social media and then you can track which variation was most successful in Edgar’s analytics.
Then you can either improve variations that did not receive clicks, continue using the most successful variation or create click to tweet calls to action using your most successful variation!
The autovariations tool is another easy way to promote your blog and encourage social shares. Edgar automatically pulls important content and key phrases from your blog to create your own social media updates. You can create multiple posts in just seconds with this tool and the best part is, they are all in your own words so your autovariation posts actually sound like you!
8. Don’t forget the basics
Of course, you won’t get any social shares if you skip the basics. Basics include things like proper grammar and spelling. If you don’t consider yourself a copy editor, then check out the Grammarly tool for your blogs.
You should also be sure that your blog posts are formatted for all screens. Mobile Internet usage has officially surpassed desktop for the first time in history! More and more people are using their mobile devices to read blogs so avoid complicated formatting or anything that could cause a negative mobile viewing experience.
Perhaps the most important tip to encourage social shares in your blog posts is to write extraordinarily valuable content for your audience. Take the time to write posts that identify problems and provide solutions for your audience. Do the research, listen to your audience for what they want to learn and focus on providing the very best blogs. This might mean that you’re posting less often but that’s is OK if you are posting less often but with higher quality content!
Looking for more tips for blogging? Download our free guide: Meet Edgar’s Secret Blogging Formula.
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