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Blogging is a powerful tool for driving organic traffic. But getting readers is not easy. That’s why it’s critical that bloggers learn how to write posts that generate the right kind of traffic.

We’ve created this post to give you tips that not only bring traffic to your site, but keep readers there long enough to pay attention to what you’re offering.

Preparing to Write

Before beginning to write, preparation is necessary. It’s critical the writer has a thorough understanding of the target audience and a keyword list. These things evolve with your business, so what works today may not work tomorrow.

Know Your Readers

If you’re working with a writer, provide as much information as possible about your target audience. Good content marketing starts with a buyer persona – a semi-fictional character that represents your ideal client. Over time you may have many, but choose only one for each post.

Choose Your Keywords

Once you’ve determined the audience, come up with a keyword list. There’s a lot of controversy over how many keywords you should choose. While marketers recommend shooting for only one or two per post, some SEO experts say this isn’t a good idea because search engines change their methods too frequently.

Writing a Killer Blog Post

Once you understand your target audience and have a keyword list, it’s time to get writing. Creating a blog post isn’t the same as writing a newspaper article. Read on to learn the most important elements of every blog post.

All is Lost Without a Compelling Headline

Think of your headline as a billboard for your post. If you want people to read it, you need to craft your headline carefully.

Your headline need to be attractive, but honesty is key to keeping readers. If you don’t follow-through with what you promise with your headline, readers will lose faith in you and Google will likely penalize you with lower rankings.

Your headline doesn’t have to be exciting. This post uses simple language to tell you exactly what to expect. Anyone can teach you to write a blog post, but we wanted to make sure you understand that we will teach you to write a post people want to read.

Headline Resources:

• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
• Inbound Now Blog Title Idea Generator
• Copyblogger How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Article Structure is Key

People don’t read the same way online as they do when holding a book or magazine in their hands. It’s easy to get distracted. That’s why bloggers write so much differently than magazine writers and journalists.

While good writing is a prerequisite to quality content, writing for the web is different. These techniques keep people reading and bounce rates low:

• Break articles into sections with multiple headlines and subheads
• Use bullet points and numbered lists
• Incorporate white space to avoid overwhelming the reader
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short
• Make every word count. Eliminate sentences that the readers already know or don’t add value to the post (example: Search engines are websites where users input a term in order to find related pages online.)

Keyword Optimization is Still Important

While every post needs to be keyword-optimized, remember that search engines get readers to your page but won’t keep them there. That’s what good writing does.

With search engines moving from keywords to user intent, are keywords still relevant? Of course they are! In order for search engines to determine user intent, they rely on keywords.

When writing your post, use your keyword in the headline (H1 tag), first and last paragraphs, and any subheads (H2 or H3 tags). This is what helps evergreen content climb to the top of SERPs.

Keywords shouldn’t look like they are shoved into a spot just to make Google happy. It’s important that they appear naturally, because you’re writing for people.

Stay Focused on The Reader

Answering their questions and relieving their fears will create an emotional connection that satisfies your readers. And a happy reader often becomes a happy customer.