Simple methods to write content that doesn't get lost but is fun to read and ultimately leads to buyers! On the Oplayo blog, we publish two to three articles a month and have several thousand readers, while other sites publish several articles a week and only get a few hundred readers (keyword: beat the competition).
But why is that?
Well, everyone wants to know how to write and publish their article and not get lost in the (seemingly) infinite internet. Whether you're launching a new product, running a business or simply enjoy writing blog posts, everyone wants their article to be read.
Most people think there are some secrets and tricks
There are none, it's not magic. You don't have to be part of a professional team that posts hundreds of articles a day. You don't have to somehow pay hackers to get readers. There are several simple, logical and free tips you can implement right now to make your content stand out. Just remember to do what works best for you. My articles may be different than yours and my goal may be different than yours. My goal is primarily to provide useful tips, help others and avoid mistakes. And if you want to delve deeper into SEO, content marketing and online marketing, you can hire me or a colleague from the team. Your goal may be different.
What is your goal?
There is some basic knowledge about writing articles, for example:
- Write short articles of between 6-8 minutes (I don't stick to this from time to time - especially with special SEO topics)
- Publish constantly and "often"
- Post on weekdays
- Use a good featured image
- Keep your paragraphs short
These are good tips, but if you do what everyone else is doing, will you stand out? Every few weeks we write 15-20 minute articles and publish them on a Saturday. That works. It actually seems to work quite well.
Publish on different sites
If you're out there writing alone and wondering if anyone is reading your blog, you should publish your articles on other platforms. There are numerous sites and platforms where you can publish your blogs, such as LinkedIn, Medium, Xing, even Facebook and Instagram. These are all free readers! You should take advantage of that, right? You can simply copy your articles and publish or link to them - Google won't penalize you if you do it right.
Content is the most important thing
This part is critical. I know you hear this a lot but I keep saying it: write about topics that interest you, that you know about and that you're happy to invest time in. Put all your blood, sweat and tears into an article and make it visually appealing. Now you just need to invest as much time in proofreading it as you did in writing it. Corrections often improve the article immensely. I don't just mean spelling mistakes, but also structural errors and legibility. The level of our texts is at 8th grade level, maybe even 6th grade. So the text reads itself and is easy to understand for everyone. For English texts we recommend Hemingway.
Also take a lot of time for the title of the article! The title decides everything, because nobody will read the content of the text unless the title convinces them. No matter how good the content is. But how do I choose a good title? Analyze yourself! Look at the titles of the texts you read in your free time. What do they have in common? What do they not? Why did you decide to read the text? Next, you can google the title yourself and look at the results.
If you were looking for the exact information in your article, would you click on your title?
Does your title reflect the content of the text? Have you used some power words? You don't have to use one, but readers like it. It doesn't have to be clickbait either. Each of these questions can play a huge role, so answer them all! What does your featured image look like? Is it interesting and exciting? It makes sense to choose an image that matches the text. But it doesn't have to be 100% identical to the content you've written. Choose one that arouses emotions, one that motivates the visitor to read the text. Try googling the topics of your article. Are there trillions of hits? Are you ready to compete against them? It's tempting to use keywords that have a lot of hits, but are you sure you can rank up there? The last thing you want is to end up on page 72346 of Google.
If your article comes up after the 1st page of a Google search, it doesn't really exist.
If you're using a keyword tool, I recommend the golden mean. You should look for keywords that are searched for by a lot of people, but not keywords that are used by everyone. It's important to know that other (thousands of) authors besides you are putting everything into their articles before releasing them into the depths of the internet. It's your job to help people find your text. If the article is praised but still doesn't rank after 6 months, there are a few ways to push content.
Images, images, images
Gaps are your friends. You want text with lots of gaps and short paragraphs. You also want visuals. Get some fancy images. All you have to do is find images that you like. You can use your own images, or if you want even more, there's Pixabay, Pexels etc. for free images. Of course there are also sites like Shutterstock where you can usually find better images, but they are not free. If you want even more, you can use GIFs. GIFs are image sequences that are supported on almost all platforms. On Giphy, you can simply embed the GIFs into your own page. Also make sure to indicate the sources. If you don't have the right to the images, simply don't use them.
Link to yourself?
How often do you find yourself wandering around the internet without a clue and come across an extremely good article? Quite often, right? Do you then go searching to find more articles by the author? Rarely? Even if there is a link to a page that shows all the texts by this author? I think readers are more likely to click on related topics than to go to the author's site. But what do you do? How do you react to texts and what do you do afterwards? Search for topics and pay attention to what you do. Then simply implement it on your site. You can also place links to your own articles. That's great, but only if it's really helpful for the reader.
Link related topics for SEO
It's not always good or just too much, BUT wherever it fits, link to similar texts that you have already written.
Choose your tags
Some are better than others for getting attention. Some are better for generating followers. I usually use one or two big tags and three "medium" ones. Remember - the more popular your tags are, the quicker your article will be "buried". Using tags that are big and not huge works quite well in the beginning. If you have a great, well-edited article with images, an interesting title, a catchy featured image and solid tags, publish it.
Congratulations! Are you done now? Not even close. Share it! Now that everything is ready, share it! Post it on social media. Link to it everywhere and send it to your friends and family. Ask them to like, retweet, etc. I know it's not exactly fun, but believe me, after 50 likes etc. they will come by themselves! Very few people want to like something if hardly anyone else has done it. Maybe you know it from yourself. Very often posts with just a few likes are ignored. It makes a difference whether you have 8 or 50 likes. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Medium, Reddit. Wherever it makes sense, you should find the article. Are you in any online group where the article makes sense? Get it in there! You have so many options. There are also tools like Buffer that will do it for you. Just don't post it once and forget about it. Post it several times! Nobody remembers a link on Twitter that they saw a few days ago. Post it multiple times and someone is guaranteed to see it again. Help others find you. The internet is huge and hardly anyone will just come across the text. Use those links! Google also loves links. That's why you shouldn't do without them. It's also a good idea to place links from older articles to the new ones. Only if they make sense, of course. You can do the same the other way around.
Keep writing
Whether you post once a month or ten times a day, keep writing. The more often you publish good texts, the more likely it is that readers will come across you and your texts. Keep writing and keep sharing. Don't stop sharing. There are thousands of readers out there who would read your articles but don't come across you. There are also those who already know you but don't visit your website every day. That's why you should consistently write and post good copy.