Guest Post: 5 Best Ideas for Driving Organic Traffic through Blog Posts

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Are you wondering if blogging is actually worth it for your business? Blogs may seem time-consuming to create, especially for a small business owner, but they have shown to be extremely beneficial for driving traffic.

Why are blog posts important for online businesses?

Obviously, this article is all about encouraging more organic traffic through blog posts but what other benefits do blogs bring?

Firstly, the more articles your website has published, the more keywords you are likely to rank for. Increasing keyword ranking will contribute to your website’s SEO rankings and authority within your niche. With a blog, you’re able to address more questions and thoughts that your target audience is looking for and are therefore more likely to rank higher within their search results.

Secondly, blog posts are essential to the educational part of your funnel, the top entry level. People come to blogs for answers to their queries and will start pushing them through your funnel. Helping to create warm leads by getting them to sign up to your email list or explore and purchase your products and/or services.

Thirdly, unlike social media posts that have a short life span, results from blog posts can get better with age. Over time, your articles may attract more links, more shares, and gain higher SERP positions. Blogging will provide long-term results and ensure a continued flow of traffic, leads and potential sales.

This is only a touch on all of the potential benefits you will find from blogging. So, what are the best ways to start?

5 best ways to boost organic traffic with blog posts

1. Writing List Posts
Our first recommendation is to write list posts, exactly like the post you are reading right now. Want to know the specific data behind the success of list posts? In a recent study reported by Conductor, a global SEO agency, 36% of the participants noted that they were more likely to click on list posts and list headlines.

Here are some examples of good list headlines that are sure to increase traffic:

  •  10 ways for using the Pomodoro technique in everyday time-management
  •  3 open-source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop
  •  5 free workout programmes for busy people and their benefits

If you want to increase your search rankings, your list posts have to offer something unique and valuable. This is typically done by following these  recommendations:

  • Offering expert advice based on your personal experiences. Referring to existing case studies and data.
  • Sharing valuable anecdotes and tidbits relevant to your topic.
  •  Including practical recommendations addressing topical issues.

 

2. Sharing Third-Party Resources and Links
When blogging, it’s easy to see other bloggers as your rivals. This attitude, however, is destructive and unhealthy if you’re planning to blog professionally.

Collaborating with other bloggers is one of the most effective means of growing organic traffic and is a cornerstone of white-label link building. A great way to achieve this aim is by writing and curating a resource page.

A good resource page should do all of the below.
? Include links to respectable blogs, and third-party products and services.
? Disclose if you’re partnered with other blogs or are sponsored by the companies that you are linking to.
? Be topical; you should update your resource page at least once a month to keep track of the latest issues and provide value to your readers.
? Include your remarks and comments about the content you’re linking to.

Some platforms (e.g., Hubspot) are so large that their entire resources page only includes links to their own resources and tools. This is simply not feasible for smaller bloggers. Because of this, don’t worry if your resources page needs to link to other popular blogs. Other blogs are not out there to ‘steal’ your readers. Your readers will appreciate you trying to provide as much value as possible and will return to your blog for more. In addition, resource pages can be a great place to connect with other bloggers and perhaps gain links back to your blog and grow your rankings.

3. Writing Detailed Reviews
Let’s face it, everybody likes reading a good review. But what exactly should you review? Well, practically anything goes. Book reviews are incredibly popular right now as reading is seen as a highly prestigious and thoughtful hobby in a world that is overwhelmed by information. The average time spent reading books in the US has remained consistently around 15 minutes per day since 2014.

Other great review options are online platforms, tools and courses. Online learning is experiencing a huge boom right now due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, a lot of people simply don’t know what courses or online universities they should choose. You could (and should) become a very valuable guide in a rapidly expanding industry.

Reviews of products are also encouraged. There are always new and emerging products and brands within every niche. Product reviews will always have a place in blogging and gain organic traffic from the people looking specifically for reviews before purchasing anything. This can also easily lead to affiliate sales and sponsored review posts in the future.

If you want to write a captivating review, follow the below guidelines:

  • Include links to respectable sources of secondary data.
  • Clearly mark your own subjective opinions.
  • Don’t be afraid to share personal stories and anecdotes.
  • Always remain critical but don’t nitpick.

4. Using a Keyword Ranking Tool
Two of the most widespread mistakes made by bloggers are failing to integrate new keywords into their posts and not getting rid of keywords that are no longer valuable. You’ve already made the same mistakes if you’ve done at least one of the following things:

  • Only use a single spreadsheet including all your keywords.
  • Do not check the keyword statistics for your older posts.
  • Do not use any third-party tools to monitor the rankings of your current keywords.

If you’ve recognised your blogging practices in the above list, then it’s time for a change. Luckily, two of the best keyword ranking tools that are available to bloggers are completely free.

  •  Ahrefs provides free monthly updates to its keyword database and can search keyword popularity across different domains. The tool also focuses on non-conventional metrics such as keyword difficulty and the estimated organic traffic provided by each new keyword
  • MOZ can be used to easily generate infographics about specific keywords and is a great daily tracker of keyword popularity.

Make a habit of spending at least 10-15 minutes per day to check the status of your keywords and update your SEO spreadsheets and documents. This is not only a great time management exercise but is practically a guarantee of achieving solid organic traffic figures.

5. Guest Posting Featuring Opinion Leaders
We’ve already discussed that bloggers become stronger by cooperating and writing extensive resource pages. The same principle also applies to guest posting and inviting opinion leaders to give valuable tips on a specific subject.

A good guest post:

  • is written by a well-known personality and includes the distinct features of this personality’s style.
  • offers a unique perspective on a topical issue (e.g., new updates to the Google algorithm).
  • credits all contributors and details why these people are considered experts in a given field.
  • includes links to the guest contributor’s other publications.

We know that guest posting might seem a bit scary. After all, you’re willingly relinquishing creative control to a person you might not have met before. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to grow traffic and increase the authority of your web page.

You can also provide high-quality, guest post content to other websites yourself. This helps to establish you and your business as an authority in your niche and can bring organic traffic from other blogs.

Another way to collaborate with opinion leaders is by creating interview-type posts or list of snippets from multiple personalities. The wealth of information in these posts can attract a lot of attention from potential visitors and links from other bloggers.

Conclusion:

In our opinion, the optimal time to start growing your organic traffic is right now. With the rise in teleworking and similar digital services, more and more people turn to bloggers to adapt to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. If you follow the above strategies, you’re sure to become a valid opinion leader in your own right and strongly grow your loyal following.

Author Bio
           

 Catherine Smith is an online Marketing Manager at PhD Centre, specializing in PhD thesis writing. She is passionate about researching and writing on various topics, including Education, Marketing, and Technology.

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The Big 5 for Content Writing

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“A writing conference is a perfect mix of all the ingredients you need to grow as a writer,” Scribd.com asserts. Novelists will start out learning the importance of the Big 5.

  1. Who is your hero?
  2. What do they want?
  3. Why do they want it?
  4. Why can’t they have it?
  5. What happens if they don/t get it? (the stakes)

At Say It For You, we teach content writers to help business and practice owners discover the answers to those very same Big 5 questions about their target audience. To a certain extent, online searchers have found the blog. A certain number of them have stayed long enough to assure themselves that the information you’ve provided is generally a good match for their needs. Now, however, you’re hoping those prospects will choose to become your clients, buyers, patients, or customers.

  1. Who is the target reader? What is their education and sophistication level? Where are they “hanging out”? What organizations do they belong to?
  2. What do they want? Status? Health? Knowledge? Technical advice?
  3. Why, in today’s world, is it important for them to find a solution?
  4. What factors stand in the way of their getting their “it”?
  5. What are the stakes? Why is it crucial for those readers to satisfy those needs?

Some special observations are in order about those “what-happens-if-they-don’t-get-it” stakes. People getting “scared” into action is an important topic in marketing, but at Say It For You, we are not fans of business owners using fear tactics in galvanizing customers into action. Instead, our recommendation to content writers would be to aim towards helping readers envision the potential comfort and relief that that using your advice, products, and services can bring.

On the other hand, it’s important in all marketing to convey a certain sense of urgency, using a “why now?” approach. Knowing the “whys” behind the “whats” – what your target readers want and what factors stand in the way of their getting it – allows you to offer marketing content that provides Big 5 answers!

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Blog Like You Have an Illustrator

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As a professional illustrator, Ebony Glenn offers advice to book authors in a Writer’s Digest piece. Your story, Glenn says, will help the illustrator pair art with text.

Have a compelling theme
To get an illustrator’s wells of creativity overflowing, Glenn says, have a compelling theme. The theme is your story’s North Star. If you have too many poorly defined themes, it will be a challenge for readers to connect with you. Readers need to be able to find the why to your text.

In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Provide resources
Provide your illustrator with resources and notes if your story requires additional research (it’s about a historical figure or takes place in a foreign setting), Glenn tells picture book authors. In blog content, links are part of the resources you’re providing for readers, Amy Lupold Bair says in Blogging for Dummies. At Say It For You, we see collating information from different sources and then organizing that information in a different way provides great value to readers.

Use art to arouse curiosity and evoke emotion
It is the job of the illustrator to engage readers with their imagery, Ebony Glenn admits, enriching the content with intrigue and stimulating curiosity. While words are the most important part of blogging for business, visuals, whether in the form of “clip art”, photos, graphs, charts, or even videos, add interest and evoke emotion.

Personally, in blog marketing, I like clip art. While these commercial images are not original to my client’s business or practice and they don’t actually depict a practice’s or a business’ products services, colleagues, or customers, often clip art is more effective than anything else in capturing concepts, helping me as the blog content writer express the main idea I’m articulating in a post.

Read, read, read
Asked for a top piece of advice for aspiring illustrators of all ages, picture book mentor Kim Rogers answers, “Read, read, read some more. It’s the best way to see how books are written, which ones work and which ones don’t.”

Ditto for blog content writers, I’ve been teaching at Say It For You. In order to create a valuable ongoing blog for your business, it’s going to take equal parts reading and writing. You need to keep up with what others are saying on your topic (What’s in the news? What problems and questions have been surfacing that relate to your industry or profession?) You need a constant flow of ideas.

So, no, you may not have an illustrator, but keep these valuable tips in mind in order to keep producing focused and inspiring marketing content.

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Using Log Lines to Create Blog Content

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For those who are new to the craft of screenwriting, the log line is a 25-word brief description of what the movie is about, Peter Fox explains in the Writer magazine. No matter what film you’re reading about, Fox adds, in the log line you’ll find at least one of the five pillars of cinematic conflict:

  1. Problem of conscience.
  2. It’s not fair.
  3. Facing the mountain.
  4. Stand and deliver.
  5. Life or death.

Classic films might have characters that endure all five of these conflicts, the author explains. However, it’s important, before film writers begin to create a movie, for them to identify the core of the character’s struggle and then build the content around that core or “pillar”.

How can this log line wisdom translate into blog marketing?

Problem of conscience – In blogging on behalf of a charity, it’s important to demonstrate that donated funds are handled responsibly and used to forward the stated goals of the organization. But, even in content marketing of products and services, as study.com explains, it’s important to assert your personal authority and to appear as an expert in the subject you’re writing about.

It’s not fair – Identify what problems your readers are experiencing and create content that aims to solve that one single social or business “unfairness” or problem. If you cannot provide a solution, in your blog, recommend articles, eBooks, tools, apps, or services that might help, Fabrizio Van Marciano of magnet4blogging.net suggests.

Facing the mountain – For the same reason most college-bound students are tasked with writing an “overcoming challenges” essay, recounting a time when they faced a challenge, setback or failure. Using blog content to recounting obstacles a business owner or professional practitioner overcame can help prospects embrace and engage with the content.

Stand and deliver – In the movie of that title, the phrase “stand and deliver” expresses the concept of maintaining one’s position and acting independently.

Life or death – While credible blogs hardly tout the purchase of any product or service as a life-or-death decision, content writers can offer reader “decision aids”, helping searchers understand the possible consequences of delay in implementing the recommended commitment or involvement.

At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, with a single message directed to a single audience segment. Just as in movie-making, In blogging for business, it’s a good idea to start with the log line.

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The Other Side of Showing What It takes

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In Tuesday’s post, we discussed the importance of “bragging” to make readers aware of “what it takes to do what you do and how much effort you put into acquiring the expertise you’re now going to be able to use for their benefit…”

The other side of “showing what it takes” involves how-tos and useful pieces of advice, explaining what steps will be involved in readers accomplishing a particular goal. One aspect of blogging is putting your own unique slant on best practices within your field, calling attention to rules and safety procedures of which readers need to be aware.

Actually, from a content writer’s point of view, giving instructions is a lot harder than first appears. There is no end to the technical information available to consumers on the internet. Our job, therefore, becomes helping readers understand, absorb, buy into, and use that information.  One way to empower customers to make a decision is to help them understand the differences between various industry terms, as well as the differences between the products and services of one business compared to those offered by another.

The advice Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide offers starts with giving away information to get clients. “By providing visitors with free and valuable information and services, you entice them to return to your web site often.” Ironically, many business owners are initially afraid to share “too much” information with prospects until after they’ve become clients. At Say It For You, our experience has been that providing useful instruction to prospects instills confidence in the provider and cements the relationship.

Blog content is part of the BRAN analysis process prospective clients use when choosing a provider of any product or service:, and taking readers through that process is a way of “showing them what it takes” to achieve the results they want or the answers they seek.

B = What are the benefits?
R = What are the risks?
A = What are the alternatives?
N = What if I/we do nothing?

“Bragging” makes readers aware of what it took for the business owner to be able to offer such a high level of expertise and experience. Taking prospects through BRAN analysis shows what it will take on their part to achieve the hoped-for outcomes.

Blog content marketing addresses both sides of the “what does it take?” question.

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