8 essential elements for effective blog posts

In a recent post, Andy Teipen explained why content marketing is the ideal way for many B2B and B2C marketers to find and engage potential customers. Over the next few months, we’ll use this blog to explore the various parts of a content marketing program in detail. Today I’ll start with the most obvious part: content! 

Fresh content fuels your internet marketing

Content is the fuel that should drive your Internet marketing strategy. By creating high-quality content that delivers something valuable to a well-defined target audience, you can:

• Improve your search engine rankings visibility and rankings (because blog posts keep your website fresh and sometimes earn inbound links from other sites)
• Attract more visitors to your site
• Create a way for you to “convert” those visitors into leads and customers

What should you blog about?

It’s simple: talk about what your industry and potential customers care about. Think like an educator, not a marketer. This education is not about your product. It’s about common industry issues and the problems your potential customers face. Then, after you’ve offered something of value, you can talk about the solutions your product or service offers to tackle these challenges. But many times you don’t have to do that, because your knowledge speaks for itself.

Here are some great ways to brainstorm blog topics:

• Answer the ten most common questions you get asked by prospective new customers. And think about this: answering these questions online might help your customer service team and/or shorten the time needed to close sales!
• Think about big issues in the news and how they might affect your industry. For example, a travel agent could use news about Ebola as an opportunity to blog about whether travelers should take precaution when flying overseas.
• Look for opportunities to repurpose content. For example, a new whitepaper or research report could generate several weeks’ worth of blog posts that each share details or small nuggets of data from the complete report.

A blog by any other name …

A blog isn’t the only way to produce ongoing content. Once you have your list of topics, think about how you could present the content in other ways. I’m a big fan of:

• Quick how-to videos
• Recorded interviews
• SlideShare presentations
• Simple graphics that tell a story visually

8 must-haves for your blog posts

Every time you post something, it’s an opportunity to find and engage new people. To engage effectively, be sure your post has all of these essential elements:

1. A headline that appeals to potential readers and search engines. (Tip: no one cares what you call something internally, so use the terms your readers use.)
2. A URL that matches and reinforces the headline.
3. A featured image. (Tip: Be sure you have the rights to use every image in your post and that you’re properly citing the source.)
4. Subheads that break up the blog into easy-to-scan, easy-to-consume sections. (Tip: Section headers are also great for search engines.)
5. Relevant links to other pieces of your content on your site that could be helpful to your readers.
6. Buttons that allows users to share your content easily.
7. A place to leave comments/feedback.
8. A call to action (CTA) that prompts the reader to engage with you more, for example by downloading an e-book or signing up for a demo.

Want to know more about that last one? Lucky you! In our next blog post, Roberta will explain what makes a great CTA.  

- Paige 

Paige Moore is the content director for OSD. In addition to being our chief word nerd, she handles site architecture for websites and strategy for content marketing programs.