We all heard and seen all over the internet that “Content is king”, it sounds obvious, but writing good and interesting blog posts takes time, and also it’s a must these days.

Have you seen the tremendous number of active users lately?

Let me briefly inform you, that according to Statista, there are 4.57 billion active internet users, encompassing 59 percent of the global population.

This is one of the reason why I said that having a good blog posts is a must.

Well-written, well researched and compelling blog posts is what you need to keep your visitors coming back for more.

Whether you’re just started in the blogging field or have been writing for a while, you know how challenging is to rank on search engines. Not that the algorithm is making our life easier.

What do you need in a blog post to match these requirements?

Allow me to introduce to you a list with 10 most important things in a blog post to get more traffic.

1. A Badass Catchy Headline

Did you know that the headline is the first thing that people see in search engines?

Of course you do, there’s no surprise here. But do you know what exactly needs your headline?

Starting with drafts always will be a good idea, because there’s no way to come up with a catchy headline without doing some research.

I always write down at least 10 headlines, I analyze them, and then I decide which one will it be my headline.

It takes up to 3 seconds for a visitor to become or not part of your audience.

I’m here to help, so here are 5 tricks that I learned so far, to implement if you want a catchy headline:

↠ Trick #1 – Use specific numbers and data;

↠ Trick #2 – Use a unique rationale;

↠ Trick #3 – Use brackets and parentheses;

↠ Trick #4 – Call for attention;

↠ Trick #5 – Use emotional words + “YOU”.

Check this post for a in-depth lecture on how to write a blog post.

Besides a catchy headline, you need some emotion-packed words to hook your audience in no-time, or simply Power Words.

2. Power Words

Power words are descriptive words that trigger an emotional response. They’re called “power words” because they are so strong that people clearly can’t resist being influenced by them! 

Power words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble.

Here are some power words based on feelings:

Anyhow, I know how difficult is to have fresh ideas on a regular basis, I’m struggling with that too, but guys, the almighty Google has plenty of inspiration out there.

If you have an idea, just type it into Google, you never know what results will pop up.

With that being said, the next thing you need in a blog post is:

3. Visuals

As the name suggests, visuals deliver information visually, obvious!

Here’s what you can use as visuals in blog posts:

• Charts – a graphical representation of data, in which “the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart.
• Statistics – is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data.
• Infographics – are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.
• Screenshots – also known as ss, sc, screen capture, or screengrab, is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display.
• [source: Wikipedia]

If you’re curious about some dope statistics, here’s why our brain craves infographics.

People love interaction, why not using this aspect in your favor?

By adding images and videos, you will attract more visitors, rather than having just plain text.

Check out this guide on how to embed videos in WordPress.

Good, onto the next one, please.

4. Content Upgrade

It is a simple process of converting your blog posts into a free, bonus content that people can get their hands on it. This is a win-win situation, to get access to a specific content upgrade, your visitors (probably future customers) have to subscribe to your email.

Content Upgrade Ideas:

• Blog post turned into a downloadable PDF
• Create a step-by-step guide
• Case study
• Worksheets
• Printable

Did you know that Brian Dean – Backlinko added content upgrades to 15 blog posts and boosted his site-wide conversion rate by 185%?

Do you wanna see other great results? Check this tutorial to find out also what plugin (psst it’s also FREE) we recommend for growing an email list.

5. Content Lockers

A Content Locker is a pop-up that cannot be closed unless a user achieves the desired action on your website.

Content Locker is the fastest way to grow your social media traffic and mailing list by locking your WordPress content. Viewers can unlock the content by liking, or sharing on those selected social media account you want.

Don’t overuse content lockers all over your website, it may cause a bad experience for your users. Instead, add them strategically on sections of your website that give the most value.

Content Lockers Plugins based on active installations from the WordPress Plugins Repository:

• Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress ~ 3+ million active installations;
• Marketing Toolkit by OptinMonster – Popups, Email Optin Forms & Newsletter Subscribers ~ 1+ million active installations;
• Social Sharing for WordPress – Social Share Buttons & Toolkit by Social Snap ~  10,000+ active installations;
• WP Private Content Plus ~ 7,000+ active installations;
• Content Locker ~ 1,000+ active installations.

6. F.O.M.O. Effect

Fear Of Missing Out, to be more specific, but I think you already knew that.

What I’m trying to tell you here is that by adding a FOMO effect on your website, simply means to make your audience to crave for your content.

How can you do that?

Well, by adding a CountDown Timer plugin.

What is a CountDown Timer plugin?

A countdown timer plugin lets you display a timer that counts down to a specific time or date.

Why you need one?

Because countdown timers are a great way to:

• build anticipation;
• excitement;
• create a F.O.M.O. effect.

There are 2 groups:

• Normal countdown timers (i.e. launch of a website, end of a sale);
• Evergreen countdown timers (i.e. limited special offers).

Best CountDown Plugins for WordPress

• Countdown Timer Ultimate ~ 20,000+ active installations;
• WordPress Countdown Widget ~ 10,000+ active installations;
• HurryTimer – An Scarcity and Urgency Countdown Timer for WordPress & WooCommerce ~ 10,000+ active installations;
• Countdown, Coming Soon, Maintenance – Countdown & Clock ~ 8,000+ active installations;
• Evergreen Countdown Timer ~ 7,000+ active installations.

7. Social Media Presence

Why social media? The only reason would be because 42% of the world’s population is using social media, or because 54% of social browsers use social media to research products!

Solid reason, right?

But guys, hear me up, don’t do it just for the sake of doing it. Going online on social media requires a damn good strategy.

Luckily, my friends from Crisp Clear Concise Co. were nice enough to give us a quote on what branding means, and what strategy to follow.

Branding

Have you seen this logo anywhere? 

Pretty vague question, isn’t it? Okay, how about this one below:

Do you recognize this? Again fairly obvious.

So, both of them as we know, have one thing in common, that is both are globally popular brands and undeniably nearly every household has come across them at least once.

Don’t you agree?

The one in the above is best known for manufacturing one of the best selling smartphones in the world and the other for serving the quickest burgers and french fries. 

Definition of Branding

So what is meant by branding? 

Is it the logo, the name, or the products/services that are offered by the brand? To your surprise, none of them is compensating enough to capture the idea of a brand although they contribute to the brand’s identity to a great extent but still don’t make up for the definition.

Let’s first have a look at the formal definition. As per Kotler & Keller, branding is endowing products and services with the power of a brand. According to Hislop, branding is the process of creating a relationship or a connection between a company’s product and emotional perception of the customer to generate segregation among competition and building loyalty among customers.

Don’t scratch your head.

Let’s simplify that a bit.

So, what comes to your mind when you see a brand? For example, you see an iPhone 11 Pro Max in someone’s hand, and your mind gets filled with thoughts like expensive, robust build quality, secure, its ecosystem, and a premium product.

When Brands become your words 

We don’t say “search it” anymore, now we say “Google it“, right?

Get a photocopy or get a Xerox, an adhesive bandage, or simply say Band-Aid; Photoshop it; stitch a Velcro, use a Zipper and the list is endless. And this how the brands become ‘the brand’.

Strategies to build your brand

1. What you Stand For:  Your aspirations, goals, and what you want to deliver and be known for.
2. Research: The need for your product/service in the market, your target audience, and competitors.  
3. Focus, Personality, and Voice: what kind of service or product you wish to deliver in terms of value and quality, what kind of a message you want to send to your customers and competitors, how does your brand differentiate in respect to your style.
4. Name, Logo, and Color: Your business name and logo should be easy and a memorable one respectively that reflects your core function, as well as that, resonates with your audience. 
5. Positioning Statement: Tell your audience how your product/service will fulfill the needs of your target audience better than the competitors.  

Quick tip: You don’t have any ideas for your brand name? You can try Namelix. I’m sure it will come in handy!

8. Marketing Tools For Non-Tech-Savvy Marketers

Marketing tools are capable of extending your vision towards your public, your audience.

A great reason why you need marketing tools is to save time, it can help you organize your content, being also cost-effective. From case to case.

So let’s see which are those marketing tools to help you out. Each one is practical and user-friendly and requires a minimal learning curve. Many are even free:

• Content Creation
  • Google Drive – When it comes to cloud storage, I think of Google Drive as being the universal platform. Besides docs, you can create slideshows, drawings, spreadsheets, and more;
  • Grammarly – Everyone is bound to make mistakes when writing. Whether it’s a silly spelling error or poor grammar, it’s impossible to catch everything. But Grammarly will do just that (or pretty darn close to it);
  • Word Counter – Word count is kind of a big deal if you’re writing long-form content. Word Counter will let me know how many words I’ve written.

• Content Ideas:
  • Google Trends – Google Trends is a great place for getting an idea of what’s popular at the moment in your niche;
  • BuzzSumo- It’s the perfect tool for generating content ideas, and it provides info such as – how much engagement content receives, links pointing back to the content;
  • AllTop – Simply type in a search phrase, and hundreds of popular blog posts on that topic will pop up;
  • Ubersuggest – This one is a bit like the Google Keyword Tool, only simpler. Enter a search term, and Ubersuggest will spit out dozens or even hundreds of ideas.

• Remote Work
  • Trello – It involves a system of boards where you can communicate with colleagues and keep tabs on project progress;
  • Slack – You can drag and drop your files to share with others, and search your archive any time you need specific information.

• Metrics:
  • Google Analytics – Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand;
  • ShortURL – ShortURL.at is a free tool to shorten a URL or reduce a link. You can use it to create a shortened link making it easy to remember.

9. Heatmap Plugin

After all that hard work you have been putting into creating your blog posts, now it’s time to measure that efforts.

You know that Google Analytics shows you where did your visitors landed, or what page did they visited the most.

But, there’s a big but in here, reading and translating those numbers can be a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners.

This is why, I present to you a wonder tool, a heatmap plugin called Hotjar.

What is Hotjar?

Hotjar is behavior analytics and user feedback service that helps you understand the behavior of your website users and get their feedback through tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys.
[Source: Hotjar official website]

To be honest, I’m using it, and I gotta tell you this is by far the most “hottest” plugin ever. I’m loving it.

It shows recording per visitor, how much time did they spent on every visited page, where did they clicked on your site.

Absolutely amazing.

If you aren’t using it by now, go to their website or to WordPress Plugins Repository, or even better, in your WordPress Dashboard-Plugins-Add new.

However, they offer a free plan with limited features, but mark my words, it is worth to try.

10. Pop-up Form

And here we are, down to the last one thing needed on a blog post. A pop-up form.

A pop-up is a small box that appears while browsing a website, been used for advertising, generating leads and even for building an email list.

Over the past few years, pop-up forms have re-emerged as a popular marketing tactic for promoting content, driving blog subscriptions, and fueling lead generation.

So, if that’s the case, you sure need one on your website. Right?

That’s why I did the research for you. Here are the best WordPress popup plugins:

• Marketing Toolkit by OptinMonster – Popups, Email Optin Forms & Newsletter Subscribers ~ 1+ million active installations;
• Popup Builder – Responsive WordPress Pop up – Subscription & Newsletter ~ 200,000+ active installations;
• Form Maker by 10Web – Mobile-Friendly Drag & Drop Contact Form Builder ~ 10,000+ active installations;
• Hustle – Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Optins, Popups~ 90,000+ active installations;
• Forminator – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder~ 70,000+ active installations;

You know what’s funny here? I’m going to be honest.

I used all the topics listed above on Fribba’s Instagram Account.

I’m active there, sharing WordPress tips every day.

Come and say “hello”, I’ll be waiting for you.

The post 10 most important things in a blog post to more traffic first appeared on WOWLayers: Free WP Templates, Branding & Design Tips to Grow Your Online Business.