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10 Things To Implement For Successful List Building
10 Things To Implement For Successful List Building
If you have been marketing online for any length of time, you will know the importance of building your own email list.
You own your list, whereas you don’t own the social media platforms you may use to build an audience, and it can be taken away from you, and where would that leave your online business?
So, if you haven’t started already, start building your list and learn some email marketing strategies.
This article will cover 10 of the things that you can implement to grow your business with an active email list, and are a key to effective email marketing.
OK, let’s dive in…
Personalize Your Emails
It goes without saying that first impressions matter, and this is triple important for emails. Quick question: What would you do if you subscribed to a company’s email newsletter only to find out that their emails are kind of boring? Simple fonts, no backgrounds, no signatures, and so on.
What will happen is that you will ignore them, and eventually they’ll automatically end up in your spam folder. This is exactly what would happen to your emails if you don’t pay special attention to your email’s presentation.
Of course, you need to be careful and limit personalization to the subject line and the first line of the message, or your email may seem forced or fake. Also, don’t overshoot its design, just use something related to what you do as a business or professional.
Use Blogging And Landing Pages
Your mailing list will go as far as the means you use to market will take it. This means that you can’t just use a corner of your website to show a sign up form and call it a day. What you really want is to get traffic, and put your mailing list out there.
You can do that by having a blog dedicated to content outside your website, with carefully structured information that can be used to get traffic from wherever you can and then insert a landing page with a call to action to join your mailing list.
Make Good Use Of Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are teasers or incentives that you offer in a call to action to motivate your prospects to join your mailing list. The trick behind a lead magnet is giving away something that can only be obtained by joining your mailing list.
For example, giving away a free eBook, tips, or pieces of content that is not going to be published on the website and is exclusive, can be wonderful lead magnets.
Even if your prospects only sign up for the promise of a one-time free piece of content, they will be on your mailing list. From then on, it’s up to you to keep them engaged.
Use 100% Effort When Creating Your Email Content
If a personalization is the appetizer, then quality content is the full meal. You already sent emails, but what you really want is for your customer to read them and make use of its contents.
Creating quality content for your emails guarantees that your customers will be waiting for the upcoming email. Build up anticipation by creating special content from time to time, hosting contests, sending gifts to random customers, anything to keep them on edge!
Allow Guest Posting
Guest posting is a great way to make your prospects and repeated customers perceive you as a reliable source of information. By allowing guest posting and announcing it on your newsletter, you can have people wanting to read something from a different perspective.
It will also generate traffic by means of word of mouth. If somebody on your mailing list sees a guest post from somebody that knows someone is going to enjoy, they will forward that email to that person, so you’ll probably add someone to your mailing list!
Use Paid List Building Services If You Can Afford Them
While it is true that you can use some free services to manage your mailing list, it is also true that their usefulness will get limited as your mailing list grows. Not only will you be limited to a low number of subscribers, but your options to refine your list will be limited, as well.
That’s why we recommend using paid services to manage your mailing lists and to assist you in expanding it. In any case, you have to remember that the costs of email marketing are the lowest among marketing methods, and it also offers the biggest return of investment!
Give Away Stuff To Your Subscribers So They Reciprocate
There’s a simple yet all too often overlooked rule for email marketing, and it is simply about not offering something for your customer to buy during their first week on your mailing list. Instead, give them something like a gift card, or a free eBook.
By giving them something that they don’t have to pay for, you are in fact building up loyalty. This way, you’re teaching customers that you trust them by giving them a gift, and at the same time you’ll be teaching them to trust you back.
Study Your Customers So You Can Properly Target Them
You can use multiple ways to study your customer base and prospects. You can do it by using metrics, by visiting the kind of websites they visit, or by the kind of products and services that they buy, but you have to do it.
This will be helpful, because if you know your customers, you don’t have to offer them everything you sell. You only have to target them and give them what you know they want. Email each of your customer segments with what they’re looking for, and they’ll stick with you.
Work On Follow-Up Emails
You need to have a follow up email ready to be sent once somebody signs up for your mailing list. It is as simple as sending out an email welcoming a new subscriber and taking them to a start page with instructions and information about what he or she can do now that they’re signed in!
Run Periodic Maintenance Checks On Your Mailing List
You need to run a periodic maintenance check on your mailing list to know where your resources are going. It is just not worth it to have users getting your emails in their spam folders, or have dead addresses on your list. Make sure you do this clean up from time to time.
If you want to know more about nurturing you list, check out the featured resource below for a free Simple List Building report; download, read it and take action 😊
2 Simple Ways To Add Value To Your Affiliate Offers
2 Simple Ways To Add Value To Your Affiliate Offers
Affiliate marketing as an online business opportunity is very attractive as it is low cost and low risk, but as an affiliate you’re always going to have a lot of competition.
Not only are you competing with others who are selling similar products, but there may be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of serious affiliates who are selling the EXACT same product as you are.
How do you beat your competition?
By adding value (bonuses) to any affiliate offer you promote. This means providing some sort of a bonus – a freebie – to anyone who buys an offer through your affiliate link.
You’re probably wondering what the simplest and most effective way of creating a bonus for your offer or service that you are promoting.
It can be overwhelming and quite frustrating as you want to give your audience and potential buyers a valid incentive to purchase from you or through your affiliate links.
Here are a couple of simple ideas for adding value to any affiliate offer.
Offer Buyers A Free Report
If you are not sure where to start then the most effective and simplest way would be to create a free report or detailed guide.
You can make it as simple or as detailed as you like but it must provide value. Another point to take into consideration is that the guide must have a unique flow that coincides and complements the original training or tutorials.
In other words, it must be structured in a way that acts as a reference that works in tandem alongside the original content as a supplementary alternative.
You can add images and additional text to help further expand on the training while providing more insights to allow users to better understand the topic and complete tasks etc.
To give an example of this, if you are a personal trainer and your clients need help with losing weight and correcting their dietary habits, you will create a detailed guide and structure it in a way that follows a simple step-by-step process.
To elaborate on this example to keep it as simple as possible you will focus the guide on 3 key areas which your clients must follow to help them get the required results.
You will start off with an estimated time period in which they must adhere to all the rules and complete the tasks as required for them to start seeing progress.
The next step will be to create a detailed day to day meal plan that covers the types of food they should eat at each meal. Making sure to provide information based on the number of calories, protein, and macronutrients they need to consume or restrict to allow them to work within any boundaries or limitations they may have.
The final step will be to incorporate a structured exercise plan that will provide information on the best warm-up routines and exercises to implement to increase stamina, build muscle or lose weight.
You can cater the information based on the client’s proprietary needs so they can follow the plan in a simplified manner.
One of the most important aspects of providing a free report or guide to your followers is to not call it an eBook or pdf.
For example:
You don’t want to use this phrase – You can download a free pdf or eBook using the link below.
Even though there is essentially nothing wrong with this call to action but as the words, eBook and pdf are so commonly used they are rarely seen as an incentive or valuable even though they could be packed with detailed information.
So, in your audience’s eyes, it is seen as less valuable, and they may be less likely to use it.
Instead, what you should do is give the eBook a different name such as:
- Detailed Report
- Proven System
- Proven Formula
- Structured Blueprint
- Step-by-Step Process
- Detailed Document
This small change will greatly help enhance the perceived value of your bonus.
It’s a great way to get people interested in your brand, and an even better way to introduce yourself as an expert.
It will also give you an extended reach as an authority figure on the subject or topic.
You’ll not only get instant credibility for yourself and your brand but also have a chance to reveal how the training is helping others deal with their specific problems or challenges.
Now that you have those small changes in place, you can now provide a simple CTA or Call to Action to encourage your followers to provide their email address in exchange for the free report.
OK, here’s another way to add value to your affiliate offers.
Offer Buyers A Checklist
Sharing a detailed checklist is another great way to add value to an offer, service, or promotion.
People love incentives and checklists are a great way to increase a viewer’s interest in a product.
It can help users to follow along with the content of the training etc in a step-by-step order as it also helps to keep them accountable as they progress.
It also helps to solidify more trust in your product so they can get more value.
They can just check off the tasks they have completed along the way allowing them to move on and focus on the next stage of whatever process they are involved in.
This can be useful not only for solo content creators but also for groups and teams that need to work closely together on specific tasks to complete projects etc.
For a lot of teams, sharing and checking off checklists helps everyone stay on track with projects. For instance, maybe you have a big project to take on, but you don’t know who is responsible for what steps in the process.
You can create a detailed checklist of events that can be designated to each team member so that everyone involved knows exactly where to focus their time and energy on.
This will help to avoid confusion while allowing the entire process to have a better flow and be more streamlined.
There are plenty of ways you can create a detailed checklist!
- Create PDF files
- Dynamic Online Templates
- Printable Templates
You can use various design programs to build the files and convert them to pdf or different reading formats that can be made viewable online or made printable so that you can access a physical copy if needed.
Another alternative would be to create interactive checklists that have a more flexible dynamic as you can access them anywhere at any time as long as you have access to a computing or mobile device with a stable internet connection.
Everything involved with these interactive checklists is hosted online so you can view them through your internet browser window, but they can also be made printable if required.
There are so many benefits to creating detailed checklists as you can cater them to whatever area, interest, or niche where you have an established audience of loyal followers or as an incentive to entice new followers to join your group, offer or service.
You can create anything from holiday travel and packing checklists to remind people of all the specifics they need to take with them and be aware of when travelling abroad.
Even step-by-step health guides, cooking and diet plans to exercise plans etc, even how to set up an online business where they can check off each section to let them know which stage they are currently on their journey.
Checklists are a great way to summarize the content in a training course or program into individual tasks while also helping to increase engagement with the user.
You can sell checklists as an additional way to earn an extra income source, or you can give them away for free as an added bonus for an offer or product you plan to promote, you have the freedom to use or implement them how you wish.
If you like the 2 simple ways to add value to your affiliate offers in this article, you will surely like an extended and detailed report containing another 8 ways to boost your affiliate earnings.
So, check out the featured resource below for the free Simple Affiliate Strategies detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
How To Avoid The Top 7 Common Mistakes Bloggers Make
How To Avoid The Top 7 Common Mistakes Bloggers Make
Starting a blog can be a very interesting and financially rewarding endeavor, but only if you do it right. Unlike other online business models such as ecommerce, Kindle publishing or product creation, blogging has very few ‘moving parts’ to it and is simpler.
Once you install WordPress, a cool theme and some useful plugins, you’re almost set. Now all you need to do is create content.
As simple and straightforward as this sounds, there are still a few pitfalls that must be avoided.
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
Below you’ll find a list of 7 common mistakes that bloggers make… and what you need to do to steer clear of them. Take note of these pointers and remember them.
Not Defining Your Ideal Target Audience
You can’t be everything to everybody. It’s important to pick one niche, find a sub-niche within it and target a specific audience in that niche.
For example, fitness for men above 40. Or potty training for dogs. Or self-care for first-time moms.
You must have a specific audience in mind and your blog posts must be targeted at them. This is how you’ll build a loyal tribe of readers.
It can sound counterintuitive because you want a large audience, but a highly targeted audience is much more likely to get you and but from you once they see you as an authority.
Not Posting Regular Content
Initially, you’ll be excited when you set up your blog. You’ll probably create content regularly and be checking your stats to see if you’re getting traffic.
However, as time goes by, you’ll discover that content creation can be a grind. Writing is hard work. Constantly coming up with topics to write about can be a chore too.
You must have a specific audience in mind and your blog posts must be targeted at them. This is how you’ll build a loyal tribe of readers.
If you don’t post for a month or two, they’ll get tired of checking your blog and won’t show up anymore.
You’ll lose your audience, and your blog will appear stale. So, aim to post at least twice per week. This will ensure that you’ve fresh content in your blog regularly.
If you dislike writing or you’re busy, you can always hire writers from Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork or TextBroker to write articles for you.
Not Building Your List
You’ll definitely want to build a list from your blog so that you can stay in touch with your readers. Install the Thrive Leads plugin on your site and you’ll be able to create pop ups, scroll mats and even embed sign up forms in your blog posts.
With a list, you can earn commissions via affiliate marketing, or you can increase traffic to your blog by letting your subscribers know whenever you have a new post.
Make sure you use a good autoresponder service, such as Active Campaign or Aweber.
Poorly Written Content
It goes without saying that your content needs to read well and not be full of grammar and/or spelling errors.
Besides the obvious errors, your content needs to be informative and entertaining at the same time. If your readers are bored, they’ll close your page and move on.
People will sit and binge watch Netflix for hours. It’s not so much an attention span issue here as it is an ‘interest’ issue. If your content is interesting, you’ll hook your readers and keep them on your blog.
Make sure the content is user-focused and it’s best to write like you talk. Conversational content will always win online. Leave the formal writing to stuffy college professors and dusty books at the library.
Your blog needs to provide information that’s relevant, useful and entertaining. It’s a tough juggling act, but that’s what separates the popular blogs from the thousands of blogs that no one bothers visiting.
Selling Too Hard
This is a common mistake made by many beginners to marketing. They either display too many ads on their blogs or their content is too salesy.
People can see through the bloggers’ veiled attempts at providing skimpy information with an ulterior motive to sell.
You’ll want your blog posts to appear as natural as possible. The goal is always to educate and entertain. Selling should appear as an afterthought. Deftly weaving affiliate links into your content without calling attention to them will spark your readers’ curiosity.
Let them click on these links on their own… and they’ll be much more likely to buy what you’re promoting. People love buying stuff, but they hate being sold to.
So, don’t overtly sell all the time. Keep most of your posts content-driven but have affiliate links scattered here and there so that you get sales.
Poor Formatting
The Gutenberg block editor can seem clunky in the beginning but once you’re adept at using it, your blog posts can be made to look great.
Make sure you’re using a clean, fast-loading theme. Readability matters. The font used should be easy to read and legible. Use headings, sub-headings, images and videos to break up the text.
You may choose to have a sidebar or not. Not having a sidebar does give a page a cleaner look, but this is a personal choice. What matters is that your content is easy to consume. The user experience is very important.
Not Having A Clearly Defined End Goal
If you’re blogging for fun, then it doesn’t really matter what you post or when you post. But if you’re blogging for profit, then you must have an end goal in mind for EVERY post you make.
Is it to educate? Or will you be selling products through it? Or is it for traffic generation and list building?
Having an end goal in mind when creating content will help your blog stay focused on what you want to achieve – which could either be a bigger email list, increased readership or more sales.
So, decide what the goal is first – then write your blog post. If you want to know more about writing a great blog post, check out this post here.
These 7 tips when applied consistently will help you create a blog that’s engaging, popular and profitable.
Over time, you’ll have an income-generating asset that makes passive income round the clock… or you can flip it for 3 to 6 times (or more) what it’s currently earning and walk away with a sizeable chunk of profit. It doesn’t get better than that!
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Why You Need To Start Building Your List Today
Why You Need To Start Building Your List Today
List Building is an amazing tool that can help your business stay in touch.
Below, are some amazing benefits, as well as some shocking facts that will help you get the most out of List Building on behalf of your business.
You Own Your List
One of the very best benefits of creating and building a mailing list is the freedom that it grants you to manage it.
It might happen that you manage communications with your clientele pretty well through social media sites, but what if one of those social media sites goes out of fashion?
Social media platforms come and go, but email is prevalent. You have to also consider that while not everybody is on Facebook or Instagram, everybody using the internet has an email address, so it will always be good to capitalize on it.
What’s the first thing people check in the morning? Email!
Email Is Simple To Use
One of the greatest advantages of using email to communicate with your customers is its straightforward nature. Just make sure you have great content to send, and you’re done.
As for your clients, they might not know what a “hashtag” is, why they should comment on a picture, or maybe they’re just not that interested in “liking” something on Facebook and will ignore your posts, but they sure do know how to click on an interesting piece of content that you just sent to them.
You also have the advantage of getting their focus. On blogs or social media sites, users can get distracted and lost among the amount of information that they are bombarded with… even stuff that is related to yours, which may even come from a competitor!
With email, they can read from top to bottom without turning their finger in another direction. They’ll get your information in a condensed format that will only take them to where you want them to go!
It Grants You Exclusivity
When you think about what kind of content you want in your email inbox, or when you think about what individuals or companies you give your email address to, you don’t think about it as a free for all, right?
You think about it as something sacred, since years and years of receiving email junk has taught you to not expose it willingly. You have to think that your customers think about their email inboxes exactly the same way.
It Is Great For Making Announcements And Selling Products
Mailing lists are very good for sending out information that you don’t want to be buried under lots and lots of other trivial pieces of content.
People check their emails daily, and you can reach them much more easily this way.
Reminders for events, offers, announcements, contests and miscellaneous news, like items back in stock, are best sent through email.
Chances are you’ll get an immediate response, especially if you get your customers used to looking for your emails!
It Is Cost Effective
Building and maintaining a mailing list is one of the cheapest ways to market across the board.
You can use a regular service and even keep it free, or you can use a paid mailing list service and make use of better and more advanced features for keeping up with your customers.
If you are serious, you need to invest in a good autoresponder service such as Active Campaign or Aweber
This, of course, will depend on how you are planning to reach your customers, and to make sure they get the most out of the service.
It’s Private And Can Be Targeted
One of the best things about a mailing list, and more specifically about using email, is the privacy aspect, which people care about a lot. It works both ways, because you can directly address somebody and he or she can do the same with you.
People prefer it this way, because they can ask you something or complain to you without it needing to be on a public wall or post. You can also create a channel that can be exclusively dedicated for this kind of communications, which customers will be thankful for!
You can also target emails to certain people or groups of people, hence knowing their preferences and habits will be crucial. This will enhance how you communicate with them, and in turn will also change how they perceive you.
Finding The Right Balance Between Delivering Value And Selling In Your Emails
Every email marketer has to find the right balance between delivering value and promoting products. That’s the only way to ensure the longevity of your list and the loyalty of your subscribers.
If you keep mailing out for offer after offer without giving any value, you’ll appear ‘spammy’ and many of your subscribers will get annoyed and leave.
If you keep providing value and giving out freebies, you’ll condition your list to only expect free gifts and they’ll not be inclined to purchase anything from you.
So, finding the right balance is of paramount importance to keeping you in the green. Most subscribers innately know that you’re running a business and will have to promote offers every now and then to cover your business costs and generate profits.
In fact, if you do your email marketing well, your list will be supportive of your business and will purchase your products or the products you recommend. Email marketing is all about having a relationship with your list… and just like every relationship, there must be give and take.
In this section, we’ll look at 3 methods that you can employ to strike the right balance between providing value and making money through promotions.
Provide Tools And Tips
Your subscribers are on your list to learn from you. They’re looking for information that can help them with whatever their goals are.
If you have a weight loss list, your subscribers will want to know tips and tricks to lose weight. If they’re on a gardening list, they’ll want to know the latest methods to grow healthier vegetables or have a better garden.
Your job as an email marketer is to share pertinent, useful and applicable information to them on a regular basis. It’s imperative that your knowledge be shared so that they can learn something from you.
Share with them what works for you. This will keep them hooked to your emails and they’ll be less likely to leave.
Giving Gifts Or Bonuses
If you’re an affiliate marketer, you may need to give attractive bonuses to woo your list so that they buy through your link. This is especially true if you’re in the make money online niche and the product launches are highly competitive. Potential buyers will look around for the best bonuses before they make a purchase.
So, you’ll want to set up a good bonus as and when you can. That said, you do not need to provide a bonus every single time. If you’ve been providing enough value, your subscribers should purchase from you just because they like you.
It is a delicate balancing act here to get the list to purchase without always expecting a bonus… but it can be done.
If you’re in other niches, you could give out gifts like free reports or discount coupons or get special deals for your list that isn’t available elsewhere.
Offer Help When You Can
One of the best ways to increase engagement in your list is to be contactable. If you’re a successful marketer, you may hire a virtual assistant to help out here. Ask your list to contact you if they have questions or need help… and when they do, help them out.
If you recommend a product, you can always help them with any issues they may face using it. Be proactive and do what you can to make your subscriber achieve their goals.
Finding the right balance is all about showing that you care. Overdeliver and help whenever you can… and when you have something to sell, your list will support you and not unsubscribe because they think that you’re only looking out for number one.
“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
If you want to know more about nurturing you list, check out the featured resource below for a free Simple List Building report; download, read it and take action 😊
10 Tips To Make Your Blog Posts More Interesting
10 Tips To Make Your Blog Posts More Interesting
“I learned that by being entertaining you make a connection with another person.” – Robin Williams
There are several reasons why someone would start a blog. Maybe they wish to build an audience or an email list. Or maybe they wish to have an authoritative site and make money online with affiliate marketing.
Whatever your reason for building a blog, ultimately, you’ll want people to see it. To attract people to your blog, the content needs to be excellent and your blog has to look great.
In this article, you’ll discover 10 ways to ‘spice up’ your blog posts and your blog overall. Apply these tips and you’ll definitely make your blog more interesting and attractive!
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
Are you ready to get started? Let’s go…
Use Attractive Images
A picture says a thousand words. If you want your blog to be interesting, you absolutely MUST break up the text with images – and ideally, all your images must have a caption between them.
When was the last time you came across an image and didn’t read the caption?
Almost never. People like making sense of the image and the caption reinforces their perception of what they’re seeing.
There are 2 types of images you can use on your blog:
- Creative commons images (free)
- Royalty-free stock photos (paid)
You can get creative commons images from sites like Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, etc. You won’t need to pay a cent for them and can use them in your blog posts.
Some of these sites will allow you to use their images for free, but you’ll need to credit the image creator. You can do this in the caption.
Royalty-free stock photos can be purchased from sites such as IstockPhoto. Generally, these photos tend to look much better than what you’d find in the free sites.
Furthermore, the sheer variety of images in the paid image sites will mean that you can find photos that very closely match your content.
Use photos in all your blog posts. They’re one of the best ways to make your blog posts ‘pop’ and capture the readers’ attention.
Use Quote Images
People love quotes. Social media is replete with motivational quotes. Even the latest trending, “Let’s go, Brandon!” is a quote. Ingenious marketers are using that quote on mugs, t-shirts, etc. and making tons of sales.
You can always do a quick Google Image Search for quotes related to your blog post. For example, if you’re writing a blog post on productivity, a quick search for ‘productivity quotes’ will bring back these results.
Now all you need to do is compile a few quotes and verify that the quotes and the attribution is correct.
You’ll then need to create your own quote images for your blog. Do NOT use the images you find via Google Image Search. Most of these will be copyrighted images. You need to make your own… and it’s easy.
There are 2 excellent solutions for creating quotes:
Canva is free to use. Stencil and Snappa are paid options.
There are also other websites that you can use such as Quotefancy, Quozio and MediaModifier.
Quote images have the same purpose as stock photos – to break up the monotony of the text and add a dash of color and ‘punch’ to your blog posts.
Memes And Gifs!
Memes have been all the rage for the past 7 years or so. They show no signs of waning in popularity. Because memes are shared all over social media and they’re usually humorous, people automatically look at memes hoping to be entertained.
You can make free memes with a meme generator such as Imgflip or Kapwing. It’s best to have a good sense of humor when creating memes. If you lack ideas, you can visit Me.Me for inspiration.
An important point to note is that not every niche lends itself well to memes. If you’re in a serious niche such as ‘coping with grief’, you’ll want to be very careful using memes. You might be able to get away with one or two memes just to lighten the mood, but you don’t want to appear flippant.
There’s a fine line to walk here. You’ll have to exercise common sense when using memes. The same applies to using gifs that you can find on Giphy, which you can embed in your blog posts.
Remember to use memes and gifs in moderation. They work wonderfully well for grabbing attention, but too many of them can be distracting.
Break Up The Text
Reading text on a screen is a lot more stressful on the eyes than reading a paperback. This is why it’s imperative that you break up the text in your blog posts.
For starters, keep your paragraphs 3-5 lines long. Forget what you were taught in school about paragraphing rules.
When you’re online, readability is everything – and if the reader gets tired reading your content, they’re just one click away from Facebook or Kim Kardashian’s Instagram account.
And they’ll leave your blog and you’d have lost them. So you definitely want to break up the text on your blog post into smaller bite-sized chunks.
As mentioned earlier, you can use images, quotes or even have sub-headings (H2, H3,etc.)
The sub-headings will make the content easier to read for skim readers and you can have an extra line break before every sub-heading so that there’s more white space in your blog post.
You’ll want to maintain the same format of headings and sub-headings throughout your blog so that there’s uniformity and consistency throughout your blog.
Use Videos
Nothing grabs more attention than a video. These days, most people prefer watching videos over reading. So, you’ll definitely want to embed a video in your blog post.
There are two ways you can do this:
- Create your own video (RECOMMENDED)
- Use someone else’s video
Creating your own video is the recommended option because it puts a face and a voice behind the blog. People like watching other people.
Even if you’re shy and prefer to do a screen recording using a tool like Camtasia, your voice will still engage your readers. Just make sure the video is interesting.
One of the benefits of creating your own videos and having your own channel on YouTube is that your videos will attract traffic. You can then have links in your video description that points viewers to an opt in page to build your list. Or you can point them to your blog posts.
If you decide to use someone else’s video on your blog, you’ll probably be embedding a video from YouTube. This is legal and nothing to worry about.
Just click on the share button…
Then click on ‘Embed’ and you’ll be given the code to copy and paste in your blog.
The video will show up in your post with the play button. You can use a video to break up the text on your blog.
Quality And ‘Flow’ Of Content
No matter how many attractive images and engaging videos you use, at the end of the day, the quality of your written content will decide how interesting your blog post will be.
The content needs to flow well and should not feel like a mishmash of clunky paragraphs virtually stapled together to form a post.
Each point needs to lead to the next and so on. That will make the reading process smooth and seamless. Being a proficient writer will definitely help here.
If you dislike writing, you can always hire expert writers on sites like Freelancer. Always make sure that the content reads well, and is interesting and engaging.
Many marketers try to optimize their blog posts for SEO (search engine optimization), and they end up adding keywords in parts of their content just to rank well. Very often, these keyword-rich sentences don’t fit in well with the content and can sound awkward.
So, if you’re trying to rank your blog posts for specific keywords, make sure the keywords are woven seamlessly into the content so that the reader experience is good.
Use Infographics
This tip is especially useful for content that needs to be simplified. Any listicle can have an infographic created on it.
When creating an infographic, you’ll want to distil the blog post and use the most important points as your infographic’s data points. Keep your points short and succinct.
An infographic doesn’t require too much text because the icons and symbols in the image will convey the message effectively.
What matters is that the infographic is a derivative of your content. This will make the it congruent to the entire blog post.
Once the infographic is completed, you’ll insert it in your blog post (somewhere in the middle or at the end. This will help to break up the text or sum up your content in one neat image.
If you have no idea how to make an infographic, you can easily hire a freelancer on Fiverr to create an infographic for you. It’s very affordable.
Typography And Readability
The font you use on your blog needs to be legible and easy on the eyes too. There are countless articles written about fonts and font pairing. You may wish to use 2 different fonts – one for your paragraphs and one for your headings.
The most popular and effective fonts for a blog are:
- Tahoma
- Arial
- Verdana
Avoid using cursive fonts or other fonts that look stylish but when used in large blocks of text becomes difficult to read (e.g. monotype corsiva).
When it comes to readability, the font size matters too.
Avoid making your font size too small. Many older people will find it difficult to read your content. 14pt is the new 12pt!
When your font is legible, reading the content becomes less taxing on the eyes – which means your readers will not get tired easily. Your blog’s bounce rate will be lower and this will give your blog posts an SEO advantage.
The color of your font makes a difference too. Avoid using light grey font on a white background. Some websites will mention that having lighter text is easier on the eye. That may be true, but if it’s too light, it’ll strain the readers’ eyes instead. So exercise common sense here.
Your WordPress Theme
If you’re using WordPress for your blog (and most people do), the theme you use will play a huge role in your blog’s appearance. Avoid using free themes. The paid ones have more features and usually look much better.
There are thousands of themes on the market. You’ll need to decide what theme you want, depending on the type of blog you’re creating.
Many of the most popular themes have a lot of flexibility so that you can toggle between the different options and make your blog look exactly the way you want it to.
Some of the most popular themes are:
A good theme will not only give your blog a clean appearance and make it look professional… but it will also load fast. We live in a day and age where people want everything fast.
If your blog takes ages to load, you can bet you’ll be losing visitors by the boatload. They’ll just close the page (while it is still loading) and will never see your blog. So, use a WordPress theme that has a fast load speed.
You can check the speed of your blog here: https://gtmetrix.com/
Your Opinions And Stories Matter
People love watching and listening to others. It’s why Oprah is a billionaire with her talk show. It’s why Joe Rogan’s podcast gets downloaded millions of times… and it’s also why reality shows still remain as popular as ever.
As a species, we’re curious to hear and watch what other people say and do. Why else do you think social media is so addictive?
When you’re writing a blog post, even if it’s a serious topic, you’ll want to inject your opinions and stories within the post. If you have no stories of your own, tell other people’s stories.
There are many movies based on other people’s life stories. Rocky, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Blind Side, and many other poignant movies are stories about people’s trials and tribulations… and how they overcame all odds.
There are always opportunities to add your own stories and opinions. It’s better to be opinionated than to have no opinions. Even if your opinions are polarizing, you’ll still benefit by building a tighter audience who agrees with what you’re saying.
They’ll feel that you’re authentic and are on the same page as them. This is the type of ‘loyalty’ you want. You don’t want your blog to be sterile and bland like vanilla. You must let your personality shine… and your readers will enjoy reading it.
In Conclusion…
These are just some of the many ways you can make your blog posts interesting. Always remember, you’re writing for other people. You want their experience on your blog to be an enjoyable one.
If you can do that, your blog will always have a loyal following, and if you monetize your content, you’ll see sales and profit.
It all starts with giving the people what they want.
“The currency of blogging is authenticity and trust.”
– Jason Calacanis
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
