How to structure the main content of your blog
Don’t you find the filling in your sandwich the most enjoyable part? Without the filling it isn’t really a sandwich…it’s just two slices of bread and completely unsatisfying and disappointing. Add a great, tasty filling and you can transform it into something delicious and your blog could be the same. The effect your headline and introduction should have on your readers is to make them hungry to read more……to find out what you’ve filled your post with, your main content.
A few ideas
When I’m running training courses on social media, I’ll describe a blog as like a dinner party where you have time to discuss a topic. You want to be able to exchange ideas by engaging your readers so that they’ll hopefully leave you comments.
I found the following useful ideas for blog content in a Social Media Examiner article by Kristi Hines:
- Analyse your competitors (topics, frequency of posts, who writes them, how they are shared) to see what works and what doesn’t
- Make your content valuable and unique
- Subscribe to top industry blogs using RSS to keep track of the latest hot topics
- Search for people asking questions about your keyword or phrase on Twitter
- Ask your sales and support team what questions are asked most frequently by potential or current customers.
- Use bullet points and/or numbered lists to make it easier to read quickly
- Use multiple headings to break up the copy
- Write down blog ideas as they occur to you and keep them somewhere safe.
SEO by Yoast
General Settings
Page Analysis
- Keyword density – how many times your keyword appears. For example, a keyword density of 3 times is seen as low but 6 times is good. However, this is relative to how many words you’ve written;
- Outbound links are considered good – I have 4 in this article so get a “green”;
- The score on the Flesch Reading Ease test tells you whether your copy is considered easy or difficult to read. I know I have a tendency to too long sentences and need to make them shorter;
- Your Page Title should be more than 40 characters and less than the recommended 70 character limit;
- You also get Green if you have more than 300 words, which is the recommended minimum
- Including an Alt Title on any visuals with your keyword is another green rating
- Using Headings to break up your copy is also consider good.
There are many other helpful areas that the plugin analyses. The key is to have a go and see how it can help you structure your main content better. My warning still stands though – you need to write for your reader and not SEO!
I’d be interested to know what you use, if anything, to help with your SEO.