Why these two blogging ingredients have to be the best quality
Apparently to create the perfect toasted cheese sandwich, all you really need are two key ingredients, cheese and bread. The trick to making it perfect though is choosing just the right type of cheese to match just the right type of bread.
Content marketing is the same – it takes a bit of careful thought to turn something very plain into something quite extraordinary.
The job of working on your online presence is never complete. But if you have only two ingredients to create a perfect dish, you would think very carefully about how to get the very best out of those two items in order to satisfy your guests. The same applies to your online content.
The average blog post consists of just two ingredients;
A headline and copy.
An exceptional blog post however, is one that can turn those two items into something magical that has your audience desperate for more.
Here’s what you need to do;
Spend time crafting a great headline
Your headline is in essence, your menu. If people aren’t intrigued by it they won’t bother to even taste what you’re offering. Furthermore, if you state something on the menu and someone orders it, it had better be exactly what is described or you will lose a customer. It is your only chance to make a great first impression.
In the same way, your headline is your biggest call to action – which is to read your copy and this makes it the most important line of words in your entire post. So what is the secret spice to use for a great blogging headline?
Without a doubt, it’s honesty.
Clickbait was a phrase coined for a form of trickery to get people to read posts. It preys on people’s irresistible desire for closure of suspense and intrigue by using words such as “you won’t believe what happened” and “what this person did will have you in tears”. Yes, many fall for it, but the content hardly ever lives up to the hype the headline has created. Over the years it has become so annoying that no reputable business would dream of using it as discerning audiences actively avoid clicking on them. Be honest about what your content is going to offer your reader and it will go a long way in your never-ending quest to build trust with your audience.
“Headlines that work best are those that offer the reader a benefit” – David Ogilvy
Choose the right words
Yes, this seems as obvious as remembering to use steak in a steak pie. But the choice of meat is going to make a very big difference to the deliciousness of the pie. Just like a true chef knows why certain cuts of meat work better in each of the dishes he creates, a wordsmith knows why certain words have more persuasive powers than others. If you ruminate hard about the words you use and the way in which they are constructed, then just like a dish carefully crafted with the world’s most exquisite spices, your blogging content can have an almost hypnotic effect on your audience.
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in a reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon” – E.L Doctorow
Of course there are hundreds of other ingredients that you can add to guarantee that your blog posts are devoured by your audience, but if you get these two basics just right the rest will serve to enhance something already great, instead of trying to garnish a poor delivery.
