The Secret To Creating Engaging Content

There’s one thing that every website has in common and that is content. Although specified to different genres, good content is what affects the bounce rate the most when it comes to viewing your website. The question then remains, how to create engaging content that leaves a lasting impression. This often lies in the hands of ‘blogging’.

The Importance of Blogging

Many years ago, blogging was basically an online diary where a person could share thoughts, experiences, feelings and images to the world. Today blogging is so much more! With blogging your business can:

• Increase the amount of traffic to your website through inbound links
• Make your brand stand out as an expert in its own particular field
• Very importantly, improve your website’s SEO

Google has an amazing algorithm which focuses strongly on a website’s content and consistency of posts and updates. If your blog is well managed, it will strengthen your website’s SEO – and that means better business for you.

Having a company blog will also give you the opportunity to raise the amount of important inbound links. These will then direct readers to the most important and relevant parts of your website. This, together with SEO, will raise the amount of traffic to your website and decrease the bounce rate. A real positive is the fact that you may gain new customers as well.

How to Create a Blog

To create a blog, you need to create a website. You can hire someone to do this for you – but this can be very timely and costly. A better option is designing one yourself and having complete creative control. The great news is, when you are just starting out, you can even create a website for free! Go with a website builder that feels right for you - there are so many to choose from such as Wix, Web.com and Network Solutions.

Once you have signed up with them, they will then guide you to setting up your website. They have many free website templates to choose from for your free blog. It’s actually quite a fun, creative process that you will go through essentially creating the website of your dreams!

How to Outsource Bloggers

You may have an amazing brand and great marketing skills but mastery over language and amazing content is what can make or break your website. What if you are not a natural ‘Shakespeare’ and find it hard to make even one sentence sound eloquent? You need not worry. You can always hire an inhouse content writer – just make sure to read a few of their writing samples first to see if you like their writing style. The only con with this is that this process can be expensive as you may need more than one writer. The best option to this is to outsource bloggers, but where to start?

Well, the good news is, there is a community of good content writers from all over the world – you just need to know where to find them. Here is a list of sites that provide platforms for freelance writers:

• Freelancer
• Content Development Pros
• Upwork
• Guru
• Textbroker
• WriterAccess
• Contently
• ProBlogger
• AllIndieWriters
• Craigslist

The above list offers a plethora of talented writers just waiting to hear from you. As with in-house content acquisition, always ask a writer to send through a few samples of their work first before using their services. Some writers will have a portfolio or their own website which you can take a look at.

How to Find Interesting Topics for Your Blog

Whether your business deals with e-commerce, the restaurant industry, fashion, political news and so on, there are always interesting topics to write about. It’s important that a lot of your content is very current and up-to-date with the latest trends and news. This kind of content is very eye-grabbing and will create a lot of traffic. If your business deals with very traditional topics, you can always give your articles eye-catching titles that will attract readers. Facebook and Twitter are great sources of up-to-the-minute news, whether it’s covering the latest celebrity faux pas or political goings on in the Middle East. All you need do is look at the social networks you are connected to and they can spark many ideas for articles.

Personal stories are also great. For instance, if your blog is about children and family life for instance, it’s really helpful if you can be as open as possible and be honest about what family life is like. This is so people can relate and the audience draw is more intimate. People will look forward to your blogs. Finding out that your son tried out solid food for the first time and spat out all his carrots and potatoes is something all mothers can relate to. The more relatable you are, the more traffic (and return traffic) you are going to get.

Added Advantages of Great Content

The more popular your blog is and the more traffic you get, the more advertisers will pay you to advertise their products on your website – if you’re interested in monetizing traffic. This is how owning a blog and blogging can become very profitable. You may even be approached by companies who have their own blogs with links to their websites that would like to write for your website and pay you for this. Great content really works!

Content That Draws Traffic

At the end of the day, remember that your readers want to read something that is informative and of value to them. Always keep in mind that it’s important to have information that is unique and doesn’t have a “copy and paste” feel to it. Besides valuable and informative information, shock-value and newsworthy information will always draw traffic in as well.