If you’ve read my previous posts in this series, you would now be experts in capturing and retaining your readers, and why you are writing your posts.

However, any post’s main ingredient is what is written at its heart. And this shouldn’t be just a mass of words, it needs to be suitable content!

You may succeed in attracting readers to read what you write. Now they need to be educated and entertained about the information you wish to say.

Many bloggers totally rely on the content of their post to make an impression. So this Infographic will give you some pointers to think about:

Quality over quantity

You’ve probably been told it’s necessary to write long posts to get noticed. This may be the case for the search engines, but it certainly isn’t true for your readers. Those that read your posts would prefer you to write high quality suitable content, full of value and enjoyable to read.

If you have set yourself the task to blog every day, soon you may run out of ideas. Or you may be too rushed to do justice to your subject. Or the stress will burn you out after a few weeks. Whereas what your readers really want is a blog that is consistently updated with decent, readable posts.

Consistency is important for three reasons. It’s much easier to schedule regular times and keep to them. Your readers will learn when you regularly publish a post on predetermined days. And search engine spiders will soon suss this out and lie in wait for your publishing time, knowing there will be something new to crawl.

Write for your readers

No blog thrives without readers. The lack of response will soon cause its writer to give up, due to lack of interaction and feedback. Blogging to an empty void can be extremely demoralising, diminishing your blog’s purpose and function.

However, the answer is to write what your readers want to read. Find out your readers’ preferences, desires, troubles and problems. What are the gaps in their knowledge, and can you fill them? Can you stimulate a similar enthusiasm in your readers that you have for your particular subject?

Remember you’re not writing for yourself, but for your readers. This is even the case if you’re a celebrity and everybody hangs on your every word. They know exactly what their readers want, expect and can cope with, as this is the reason why they are so successful.

Use a conversational style

Conversations are much easier to read than a boring, stilted article. If you read aloud your suitable content, does it sound like you’re talking to your readers? Are you using the same words your readers would use if they were talking to you? Is your post interesting from beginning to end?

When you write in a conversational style, all inhibitions go out of the window. Forget what your English teacher taught you at school, as blogging is not like writing an essay. However, this doesn’t mean you should neglect your spelling and grammar.

Blogging is like transcribing a conversation with your readers. Imagine them sitting in your kitchen drinking coffee and eating cake. You wouldn’t speak to them in a corporate fashion, would you? Of course not, and that is exactly how you should write in your blog.

Have you a story to tell?

Ever since we were tiny, we have loved stories. Especially if they are something we can relate to. Stories have been used to win listeners round to respect and like those who deliver them.

Story telling is a form of communicating that can win the trust of your readers, and make them return for more. It makes a situation or subject more approachable, believable and understandable. If you can add humour to your anecdotes, you’re more than half way there.

Gossip is a form of conversation that is instantly accepted. It connects with a desire to know what others do not. It consists of relatable subjects that are easy to digest, and even to repeat to others later. Think of a way you can adapt your writing style so that it slots into your readers’ way of thinking.

How can you help?

It’s natural to prefer to receive rather than give. However, a blogger needs to think the opposite. What have you got that you could give you readers to make them feel better, or to improve their lives in some way?

So find out what your readers want, and give it to them. Offer solutions to their problems that will make a big difference to them. If you are able to succeed in this, their estimation of you will vastly increase.

Your suitable content needs to be packed full of value. However, if you are worrying about revealing all that you know, it will never come to that. Just write enough to whet their appetites and keep them come back for more.

Keep your promises

If your awesome headline offers a fabulous solution or the ultimate answer, remember to fulfil that promise within your suitable content. It may have successfully attracted the attention of your readers, but it is your duty to honour whatever has been mentioned or suggested in that headline.

Therefore you need to know your subject as much as you possibly can before you write your post. Sufficient research needs to be done if you are going to be able to provide what your readers expect or desire. They will not take it kindly if you fail to deliver.

And this should not stop with the headline or suitable content either. The call to action at the end of your post, which your post is leading up to, should offer a relevant resource for the valuable information you have just shared with your readers.

What do your readers expect?

How much you write in your posts will depend upon your readers, what they expect, and what they can cope with. It’s not worth you toiling over a 2,500 word post if your readers are going to get bored or distracted before they get a third of the way through.

Therefore it is imperative to know your reader, understand how they tick, and what are they capable of. If they are intellectual, give them an action-packed, information stuffed post. If they are not, make your suitable content interesting in another way so that they can easily relate to it.

You need to maintain, or even ramp up, the interest factor of your posts. Enhanced, of course, by a conversational style using words your readers also use. It is important to maintain their interest right to the end, to stop them from disappearing elsewhere.

Avoid over-complications

Today’s reader is either time-poor, or suffers from a short attention span. Social media has adapted to cope with this, offering real-time, fasting moving responses to conversations. The overall expectation of materialism means everybody wants to receive everything NOW!

Therefore you need to make your posts are easier and faster to read. Write shorter sentences within short paragraphs, liberally separated by sub headings.

Long-winded clauses and explanatory discussions are so Victorian. Nobody has the time or inclination to cope with all that! Short, sharp and snappy is the order of the day, as this creates lots of white space that guides the reader’s eye more easily to the next sentence.

Make it skimmable

Because there is so much to read, most readers have resorted to skim reading. It’s now necessary to wade through the never ending content to find what you want, and to sort out the suitable content from what is not.

So you need to make it easier for your readers to do this. Your post should be adapted to highlight the most important elements. Such as bullet point lists, subheadings breaking up paragraphs, and explanatory images that help the reader understand the subject better.

Allow the reader to get the gist of your post quickly and easily. Then they will then feel more disposed to either sit down and read it from the beginning, or at least bookmark it for later.

Remember the spiders

Avoid getting bogged down with writing for the search engines. It is your readers you should be focusing on first. However, if you are keen to optimise your posts, remember to add in relevant keywords to your suitable content within the prescribed amounts. Including links to other relevant sources will also give you more of a boost.

I want to stress that letting SEO take over your post, to the detriment of your readers and how they read and enjoy your suitable content, will not make you win in the long run. Write for your audience first, and then worry about the keywords etc afterwards.

Successful bloggers focus on how their blog is going to be read before working on the SEO. They know that exceptionally written posts will satisfy the most important receivers of their blogs and its purpose. Never let a load of algorithms destroy why you are blogging in the first place.

Now what about you?

I want to know what you think about creating suitable content for your blog posts, and how your readers react to it. What stories do you have that you can tell about situations when fantastic content has won the day. Or maybe you have a disaster anecdote share? We would all love to read them via the comment box below.

To read the earlier entries in this series, click here to start with part 1, “How An Awesome Headline Can Make a Big Difference to Your Post“

You can also read:

Part 2: “How A Blog Post Introduction Can Make Your Readers Stay“

Part 3: “How To Use Images Effectively To Attract Readers To Your Post“

Part 4: “How Having A Positive Purpose Can Influence Your Blog Writing“

Or part 6, coming soon….

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Alice Elliott

Alice Elliott (aka Fairy Blog Mother) is an award winning blogger who has been "explaining things really simply" about blogging since 2006. She is also founder of The Commenting Club created to educate the benefits of commenting, engagement and interaction to individuals and businesses.

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