Don’t hit on that blue button just yet!

You’ve just come up with a ‘masterpiece’ on your blog and ready to hit on the blue button and send it all out across the Pacific, so the little kid in the front of his old Mama’s PC could read.

Sure, I know how it feels.

But, before you hit a Sledge on the publish button, read this:

1. Optimize your post for the search

The Google search engine is the largest driver of traffic to content sites.

But, it’s equally competitive.

A study shows that more than 2 million blog posts are published in one day.

So, If you don’t optimize your post for the search engine, then getting a piece of that cake is a tough nut.

● Relevant headline – The headline must capture the full context of your blog post. Or else, your visitors won't stick on your page resulting in high bounce rate.

A high bounce rate or pogo-sticking causes the Google’s bot to drop your page faster than a rock.

How do you optimise your headline for search engine?

Here it is:

● Moderate length - Based on a research conducted by, the optimum length for a blog post title ranges from 65 to 70 characters.

● Use keywords but No stuffing - I agree, the SEO world is a new world. The days of strolling to Google's front page with keyword stuffing is gone with the rockets.

Okay, this may shock you!

A recent study by SEMRUSH shows that there is not much correlation between google ranking and keyword density.




So, what do you do?

Include your target keywords naturally within your content.

2. Optimize your Post for the people - social audience
It’s the social world, and majority of your target audience spend at least a quarter of their 24 hours on the social media.

So, It’s not enough to just optimise your post for search engines. You also need to optimize for the social medial audience.

But, how do you optimize your post for your social audience?

I'll show you how:

A study by Sumo shows that headlines that trigger any of the four major emotions are more likely to go viral on social media.



A study by the NewYork times on the psychology of social sharing shows that there are 5 major triggers that influence social sharing:



To use that to your advantage, use one of these three tactics of headline optimization in your title.

● Headline inversion
● Mild confrontation
● Promise Elements
● Numbers
● Power words
● Questions


3. Arrest Your Readers Attention With Your Introduction

The introduction must be precise, concise and straight to the point.

Here’s what I mean:

Your blog visitor must know what to expect from the main content by reading your first paragraph.

A boring introduction makes a visitor squeeze his face, calls the author a "Panda" and hit on the back button.

Now, that's another return traffic gone for good.

Here’s how to start a good post introduction

A great introduction may feature any of the following elements...

● Start with a striking fact and statistics. We all love statistics – In fact most blog readers do. Again statistics have been known to go viral much easily on social media.
● Direct a question to your reader E.g Do you know that.... or Have you ever thought of ... etc
● Echo a popular belief E.g “We all know that....”
● Tell a short, quick and related story
● Invite your reader into the context of the post

Why is this important? I will tell you...

A study shows that 55% of blog visitors don’t stick around for more than 15 seconds.

Yes, that same study shows that it is much easier to get people to share a blog post than to stick around and read.



Now, don't break a cup of glass. It's called the goldfish effect. i.e low attention span.

So, what do you do?

● To keep them on your blog, you must arrest their attention. One way to do that is to use the psychology of emotion.

So, here's the trick, If you poke on their emotion early enough by writing an interesting introduction.

So, how do you do that?

1. Tell a short Story
2. Share a short peep into your personal life
3. Share a captivating Statistics
4. Start with a Mild confrontation
5. Trigger any of the 5 major human Emotion
6. Ask Questions




4. Create a Simple Structure for Your Blog Post

It’s a rat race!

Yes, I have heard some blogging peeps say that cliche as much as the Springboks loves to hop.

To beat the race, you must come up with a lot of contents and more contents.

But hey, before you sing 'beat it', please note:

If you don’t structure those posts you send out from your blog properly, you may find yourself losing return traffic as much as you are going all out for them.

But how?:

● Write the main ideas of your post body on a piece of paper.
● Break your ideas into content blocks or subheadings.
● Avoid a wall of text. Break each block into paragraphs.
● Connect your paragraphs with transition words to improve flow.
● Avoid repeating a single word more than 2 times within your post.
● Back up each block with relevant statistics, but don't go overboard, by throwing data around like it's some sort of a rat hole.

To make your post easier to read, you may use the inverted triangle writing format. That means making your major point clear early enough.


5. Use facts and studies to back your claims

Even though your visitors want to read your voice, but you may soon get them bored if all you talk about is just your opinion. No facts to back it up!

You know how it feels?

More like repeating the same old flying Dutchman story. It soon becomes boring.

One way to avoid that is to reference other peoples opinion by backing up your posts with data, studies or quotes.

I recently studied a list of some of the top authors and I discovered something intriguing. Ramit Sethi is one of the top writers with a genius persuasive skill.

But, here's what I discovered about Ramit' writings:

“He digs into research studies”

Using well-proven facts, research data and statistics is a good way to prove your claim and build your blog brand trust.

Now, if you read through most of Akinade's post here on Socialmedialverve, he uses the same strategy.


So, what do you do?

● Dig into research studies
● Back up your claims.
● Your opinions are cool, but no one cares much if all you ‘ve got to say is yours.




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