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How to Write a Blog Post That Converts: The Definitive Guide

If you have been involved in the blogging business for a while you’ve probably read a lot of useless articles about howto write a blog post.

I’ve read them too and I found that all the people are talking about the same useless and outdated information.

That is why I started to analyze authoritative blogs and contacted a lot of relevant bloggers around the internet askingfor determinant patterns in some of their most converting blog posts.

What I found was so interesting that I decided to create this simple guide that will help you understand more aboutcreating compelling content.

Before Starting to Write:

The first mistake that people make is to start writing about anything that they consider worthy. However, if you want toget a lot of social shares, conversions, and sales; you need to follow some important points before even writing yournew piece.

How to Write a Blog Post Strategically

1.- Find content ideas that already have proven results

Instead of writing about something that you think may work, why not write about something that you KNOW will work?

Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko, a powerful site about link building and SEO strategies.

He’s just a regular guy who builds backlinks in his apartment.

But he has an enviable characteristic…

He’s managed to create super converting articles.

We’re talking about thousands of social shares…

And hundreds of comments:

And it gets better…

Brian is achieving similar results with every piece of content that he publishes.

Just by creating content based on topics with a proven record of social interaction!

Cool right?

Well, you can do it too. Here is the exact process that Brian uses to find content ideas:

a) Go to Topsy and enter any keyword.

As an example, if you have a blog related to the Pets niche, you should enter keywords like “Dog training” or “Catfood”.

Then you should look for links with a lot of social interaction:

Now you have a long list of proven ideas that will help you start creating your content.

And you can repeat the process every time!

b) BuzzSumo

The difference between BuzzSumo and Topsy is that BuzzSumo provides you with more thorough and completeinformation.

You can enter any keyword (e.g. dog training, weight loss, content marketing) and then BuzzSumo will show you a biglist of blog posts that have been racking up a lot of social media interaction.

The interesting part about using BuzzSumo is that you can determine the specific social network where people aremore likely to share your content.

Let’s say that you have a blog related to the weight loss niche, and you are trying to determine the best social networkto start promoting your content.

So, first you enter the keyword phrase: “Lose belly fat”.

And get these results:

As you can see, Facebook is the predominant social network in almost all the links of the list.

If you had a site related to the weight loss niche, Facebook would be a great place to start promoting your newcontent.

Once you have your list of proven content ideas, it’s time to go to the next stage:

2.- Improving on the blog posts that you just found

Creating content with a proven record of success does not mean that you will achieve the same results.

Why?

Because a lot of people are doing it.

Everybody writes about the same stuff trying to duplicate the results. But success is not replicable.

You need to IMPROVE that content and develop a top-notch and unique piece.

Let me explain:

Brian found that there were a lot of people who have tried to create the complete list of Google’s 200 ranking factors.Including big brands like Moz and Hubspot.

But all these sites failed.

In fact, all those lists were incomplete or had useless information.

But, if you take a look at the image above you’ll notice that all those incomplete lists still have a lot of social shares.

So, Brian took advantage of the situation and managed to create the complete list of Google’s 200 ranking factors.

He IMPROVED the content.

Yes, it was hard, Brian spent about 20 hours researching and looking for all the ranking factors around the internet.But he knew that if he could create the complete list, the results would be amazing.

And he did it.

But now your question may be:

How can I improve the content?

That’s the million-dollar question, so let me break this down:

How to Write a Blog Post and Outrun Your Competitors

If we take a look at Brian’s blog post we can find some determinant patterns that make his content better.

Let’s talk about each pattern:

1.- Content length

The serpIQ determined that average blog posts that rank in the top 10 results in Google have at least 2,000 words.

Based on the image above, we know that Google prefers content rich blogs.

The 1st result has 2,450 words and the 10th has something around 2,040 words. So, the more content the better.

In my own opinion, I think that it’s impossible to give real value to your readers in less than 1500 words, and Googleseems to agree.

Getting back to Brian’s blog post, he knew that content length is important, so he created a 5,850 words article, whichis double the words of the competing content.

2.- Design, usability and content structure

Based on the recent Moz’s article we can determine that user experience, design and content structure are veryimportant to engage readers.

People don’t like to share ugly or poorly designed sites.

Actually, people tend to interact more with well-designed and user-friendly blogs.

Invest more time and money to improve your design and you’ll notice that people spend more time on your website,which will boost your SEO.

That is exactly what Brian did.

He noticed that all his competitors’ sites weren’t spending enough time to design and structure their content, so he didthree things in order to improve his article:

1) He created original images to illustrate his points.

Like this:

And this:

2) He structured the content in several sections and inserted bullet points

The more clear and understandable you make your content the better.

In order to make your content easier to read, it can be segmented into different sections, you can also add h1, h2 andh3 tags and insert bullet points within the text.

3.- He added quality information and reference sources

Most people think that they shouldn’t share top-notch information for free.

They just write incomplete articles that don’t give real value to the readers and they hope to see results.

The fact is that people don’t care how many words you wrote if you aren’t sharing something that really helps solvetheir specific problem.

In Brian’s case, he spent hours and hours of researching to solve his audience’s problem and gave them a top-notch,unique and complete list of Google’s 200 ranking factors.

Also, he added a link to every reference source that he used to write the list. That way, people can see that all theinformation he used is accurate.

In summary, if you want to outrun your competing sites, you should evaluate these three patterns:

1. Content Length

2. Design, usability and content structure

3. Quality information

How to Create a Compelling Content Structure

When it comes structuring your content, there are some important points that you might follow in order to engage yourreaders:

1.- Magnetic Headline

The first thing your readers see is your headline.

You only have a couple of seconds before the visitor leaves your page, so you need to be careful and spend more timeperfecting your headline’s copy.

Here are some ideas to start with:

All you know about [Keyword] is wrong

[Number] mistakes that [Keyword] experts are making

The definitive guide about [Keyword]

[Number] untapped [Keyword] sources

2.- Create a Great Introduction

Eugene Schwartz (the copywriting legend) claims that there are times when he has spent several weeks just to writethe first 50 words of his sales content.

So, you can see the importance of capturing the attention of the reader in the first 100 words of your blog post.

3.- Write Original Sentences

If you take a look at ten articles on the internet, you’ll find that nine of them use the same kinds of sentences.

You don’t want to do that.

You might start using original and good quality sentences, so people can identify your content instantaneously.

4.- Insert bullet points

Inserting bullet points within your text is the best way to simplify your content and keep your copy clean and readable.

5.- Create great subheadings

As you can see, in this blog post I’m using a lot of subheadings to separate the content. That way, the reader canbetter understand what we’re talking about and will actually read the entire content.

Also, subheadings make the content funnier and easy to read.

If I had written this blog post without using subheadings at all, you probably just would have scanned the content andleft the page within a couple of seconds.

6.- Share stories, allegories, and metaphors

People are more likely to learn through stories, allegories and metaphors.

As you can noticed, I shared with you the story of Brian Dean, and how he created a powerful and converting article byapplying all the points we have been discussing in this article.

All the great religious leaders and politicians around the world do the same thing.

If we pay attention to the life of Jesus, we can see that when someone asked him a question, he always respondedwith another question and stories, allegories, and metaphors.

This point is very important if you want to become a leader in your niche.

7.- Attach unique and quality images

Most people just go to Google and enter a keyword phrase related to their content and then just download any image.

You don’t want to do that.

You want to create top-notch articles and become an above-average blogger.

Creating top-notch images for your content is very simple and you don’t need to be a designer or a Photoshop expert.

8.- Create a compelling conclusion

In a few sentences, create a summary of all the points you talked about.

That way, your readers will understand your content even more, and will leave your website with a clear idea of whatthey just have learned.

9.- Add a Call to Action

Basically, all your content is created with the main purpose of making your readers take a certain action.

This action can be leaving a comment, purchasing a product, entering an email in a web form or completing a socialmedia interaction.

I realized that there are a lot of people who don’t include a call to the action when they post an article or make a video.

They are losing a lot of money and time, because at the end of the day this specific action is what really matters.

How to Write an Optimized Blog Post

At this point you should have an expanded idea about how to write a blog post that converts, but now it’s time to starttalking about the importance of optimizing your articles for the search engines.

The truth of the matter is that if nobody reads your content, you’ll have wasted a lot of effort.

That is why I’ll give you a practical 3-steps guide that will help you understand more about how to write a blog post andwhere the main SEO factors should be located.

After you go through these steps, you’ll be able to start getting more traffic to your web site, as well as moreconversions and more sales.

1.- Dropping your Keyword in the Title

Your title is the most important of all the On-Page SEO factors, so you need to make sure that you are adding title tagsto your headlines.

Let’s see how Brian optimized his blog post:

As you can see, he added his main keyword in the title.

Also, notice that he wrote the keyword at the beginning of the title, which is a recommended practice if you want torank higher.

2.- Keyword in URL

You need to make sure that your main keyword appears in your permalinks.

3.- Place your main keyword within the first 100 words of your content

In addition to these three steps, you can also drop your keyword in some subheaders and a couple of times withinyour text.

If you follow these steps, your blog post is optimized for the search engines.

At this point I’m sure you now understand the exact process in order to write a blog post that converts really well.

You only need to do one more thing to start getting the results that you want…

TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!

And start implementing all the points we have been talking about today.

There are only two kinds of people in this business.

People who don’t take action, and therefore don’t see any results.

And people who take action immediately, and see quick results in their business.

You decide!

You can read the original blog post here: “How to write a blog post that converts: The definitive guide”

- Josue Valles

“I believe in you”

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