Marc's Blog

Content Marketing

Blogging

Why I Don’t Care About Blog Post Length

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I’ve written about this topic several times. Most bloggers aim for a perfect blog post length. They believe that writing a certain number of words will help them gain more traction. Many experts peg it at 2,000+ words for a blog post to rank well on search engines.

It’s with this mentality where it’s easy to craft long blog posts thinking that’s what it takes to become successful. However, this frame of thinking prevents bloggers from looking at the bigger picture.

If you want to turn your blog into a business, you must treat it like a business. Each blog post you produce is an asset. They all take up your time and some of them require an investment too (you might hire someone to write the blog post or use a paid tool like Canva Pro for your pictures).

Some blog posts will provide higher returns than others, but the amount of time and money you put into each blog post determines your ROI.

Not every blog post is a winner. In fact, most of them fall flat. 90% of your blog traffic is going to come from 10% of your blog posts. You’ll get a spike in traffic if you promote it when it comes out, but most blog posts die out soon after.

The goal of each blog post is to build trust with your existing audience and reach new people in the process. If you can achieve the same goal with a 500 word blog post as you would with a 2,000 word blog post, why write the extra 1,500 words when you could end up with 4 blog posts instead?

If the next blog post you publish doesn’t do well, it would feel better if it were a 1,000 word blog post rather than a 5,000 word blog post with detailed research.

The blog is just one step in the relationship. You need enough time to cater to your readers while developing the other stages of the relationship building process that eventually result in sales and revenue.

If you can fulfill the promise of your blog post in 300 concise words rather than 1,000 words of filler, why write the extra 700 words? You already accomplished your mission.

Most of my blog posts are around 1,000 words but I don’t follow that rule for everything I write. The length of your blog posts isn’t the important part. The frequency of your blog posts and the value you provide are the two key areas that matter. The more you show up, the more people will come back to your blog again and again.

5 Ways To Boost Your Blog Traffic

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Your blog is your home on the web. Visitors will seek you out if you provide educational or entertaining content that matches what they’re looking for. Getting specific about the type of visitors you want on your blog will help you cater your content to that audience.

However, there’s far more to getting visitors than just writing great content. Promoting your content and putting yourself in front of more people will help you attract additional visitors to your blog. These strategies will help you expand your audience.

#1: Accept Guest Posts

One of the best ways to grow your audience is to accept guest posts. Each piece of content is another piece you can promote to your existing audience. Getting in front of your audience more often will make you more memorable. Some of the people who see you often may recommend you to their friends.

Guest posts also carry another important function. The contributors who submit content to your site will happily share the piece with their audiences. Not only do you have an extra piece of content to promote, but someone else will promote that content to an eager audience.

Accepting guest posts is a time investment as you’ll have to read through pitches and actively reach out to guest bloggers in your early days. However, if you’re open to contributions to your site, it can be well worth it.

#2: Link To Other People’s Content

Although I don’t always do this with my blog posts, linking out to other people’s content is a great way to gain extra momentum. Not only does this help from an SEO standpoint, but you can also let people know when you mention them.

Some content creators will be grateful you included their video, podcast episode, or blog post in your content and happily share your piece of content with their audiences. The more people you mention per article, the more people you can reach out to and build relationships with.

#3: Get Into Sharing Tribes

Some influencers set up pods where they agree to share each other’s content. If you share a few blog posts from other bloggers who then agree to share your content on social media, each of your new pieces will generate extra momentum early on.

That momentum can get you on the right track to long-term SEO traffic. As you wait for the SEO traffic to kick in, you’ll get an immediate increase in visitors from all of your blogger friends sharing your content.

#4: Write More Content

Accepting guest posts helps you publish more content, but you should also write more of your own content. When a reader sees your own content, they get to build a deeper relationship with you. 

The more times you share content published on your blog, the more likely readers are to remember your brand. On the other hand, the more times you share content you wrote and published on your blog, the more likely readers are to remember you and relate to you.

Each piece you write is an additional touching point. The more times you show up, the better.

#5: Focus On Email List Growth

Blog visitors can come and go, but if someone subscribes to your email list, you can freely communicate with them at any time. This luxury is unaffected by algorithm changes and is the most vital asset of any online brand.

One of the key objectives of any piece should be email list growth. Whether you end each blog post with a call-to-action or include your opt-in box in the sidebar, always present an option for first-time visitors to subscribe to your email list.

If you are looking for additional ways to grow your email list, consider reading this blog post containing 50 tactics to grow your email list.

11 Ways To Use ThriveCart To Get More Sales From Your Website

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Getting sales is the key to sustaining and scaling your business. Money pays the bills, and you can use it to run ads to reach even more people.

I’ve used a variety of softwares in the past to help me achieve this singular objective. Some were better than others. However, for most of the top end options, the monthly payments didn’t make sense.

Then I came across ThriveCart. Unlike most software, ThriveCart is a one-time purchase for lifetime access. Most other comparable softwares charge at least $97/mo. You stop paying…you lose your stuff. ThriveCart is not like that.

I decided to give ThriveCart a try a while back and haven’t turned back since. I’ve used it for my virtual summits, product launches, and everything in between.

Since I started using ThriveCart, I’ve optimized the process of using this software to boost sales across my website. Here are the 11 ways you can start using ThriveCart to get more sales from your website.

 

#1: Set Up An Order Form

The first thing you’ll want to do on ThriveCart is create an order form. This is the actual page where people will buy your product. Here is a simple ThriveCart order form I used for my dividend investing spreadsheet.

ThriveCart gives you a variety of capabilities to enhance your order page to maximize conversions. This is just the starting point for making money with ThriveCart. You can connect with Stripe and PayPal so your customers have those payment options.

That can be done in the settings tab under the payment gateways area.

To create your order form, all you have to do is go into the “Products” tab and click on “Create Product.”

ThriveCart will then take you through the rest of the process.

Some of the previous softwares made this part of the process very tedious. Creating products, adding integrations, and making it look nice were very difficult.

On ThriveCart, it is much quicker and easier to create these types of pages. Their dashboard is easier to navigate than the other options I have tried.

 

#2: Include An Order Bump

The easiest way to use ThriveCart to get more sales is to tap into existing customers. Customers who commit to buying something with you are likely to buy more from you in the future. However, you can “speed up” the future by adding an order bump on your order page.

An order bump is an extra offer at a lower price point than the initial offer. It’s the equivalent of an optional add-on that will increase your average revenue per customer. I always add an order bump to my virtual summits and can attribute them to a 20% increase in summit revenue.

The best part about these order bumps is they’re not hard to make at all. When you go into ThriveCart’s process of creating the order form, one of their options is the order bump. This is where you can customize the appearance, name your offer, and set a price.

 

#3: Redirect Customers To An Upsell

It is imperative to note that when someone buys something from you, they are more likely to buy more things from you. This is a key fact for using ThriveCart to get more sales for your website.

One of your options in ThriveCart is to decide where people will go after they complete the purchase. ThriveCart refers to this as the success page. You can either create your own or use ThriveCart’s built-in success page builder.

You can customize this success page to include a video, text, and other elements.

So far I’ve created my own success pages using OptimizePress to sell my next level offer.

Anytime someone buys an All-Access Pass from me, they get sent to a page like this…

Upon scrolling down, the customer sees that I’m offering something new. In this case, I’m offering the Virtual Summit Blueprint (VSB) since this customer just purchased the All-Access Pass for one of my summits.

Several people who bought the All-Access Pass have taken me up on the Virtual Summit Blueprint offer.

The idea is to have another offer on the other side. If you sell something or $47, have an offer for $97 or $197 on the other side. The focus of the success page is to thank the person for buying your product. However, you can mention another product at the same time.

Part of using ThriveCart to get more sales from your website is to get multiple sales from the same customers.

 

#4: Include Benefits And Testimonials On The Order Page 

Benefits and testimonials are two of the best things to add to an order page to boost sales. Benefits give your potential customers an idea of what they’ll get. Testimonials reinforce social proof.

Earlier on, I shared my dividend spreadsheet order form. On that order form, I include the benefits right below the picture of the product.

I’ve put the picture down here to save you from scrolling back up…

The benefits appear under the What you get part and have green checkmarks next to each of them. Sometimes the benefits will be enough to turn a visitor into a customer.

However, you will boost your conversion rates with testimonials because of the social proof they’ll generate.

I recently bought ConvertBox which is a great software for boosting opt-in rates. Sure enough, they used ThriveCart for their order form and had some testimonials at the bottom…

You do not need too many testimonials for a ThriveCart order form to have the desired effect. ConvertBox only has these two testimonials on their order form at the time of writing.

 

#5: Include A Multi-Pay Option

ThriveCart gives you the ability to add multiple payment options for the same product. Depending n how your product is priced, not everyone can make the one-time payment.

However, some of these same people can buy your product under a payment plan. In most payment plan set-ups, you’ll get paid less in the beginning but end up with more money at the end of the plan.

One payment plan I recently incorporated for my summits was two payments of $25 instead of paying the $47 upfront. People have taken me up on the payment plan already, and instead of making $47 right away, I make $50 in two months.

Not only is that a 6.38% increase in revenue from doing virtually nothing extra, but I’m also getting customers who weren’t able to take me up on the one-time $47 payment.

For higher priced offers like training courses, you can get a higher ROI with the payment plan while getting more customers.

Some of the people coming out with $1,997 training courses will also have a 3 month payment plan of $797/mo. At the end of those 3 months, the total comes to $2391 instead of $1,997 which is a 19.73% revenue increase at the end of those 3 months.

 

#6: Receive Recurring Payments From Your Customers

The only problem with chasing sales is that you have to continue hitting a certain number of sales each month to continue making a certain amount of revenue each month.

Recurring payments solve this problem.

You get the customer once and the customer continues to pay you monthly. This type of payment model is commonly seen in coaching, services, softwares, and membership sites.

Having this type of model on your side will allow you to earn more with ThriveCart. In the pricing options, ThriveCart allows you to set payments to recur monthly.

This is how it looks on my end for the Advanced Influencer Mastermind which happens to be $47/mo.

This works great for automating the monthly payments of coaching, services, or any of the other types of recurring revenue offers.

 

#7: Add A Countdown Timer To Your Order Page 

One of the strongest human drivers is urgency. If you give people a short amount of time to make a decision, they will make a decision sooner.

ThriveCart allows you to add a countdown timer to your order page. When the timer hits zero, you can choose where to redirect the visitor if they have not completed their purchase.

You can create a countdown timer in the customization tab of your order form.

One important feature of the countdown timer is that you can set the countdown to a certain date or base it on a period of time after the first visit.

If you want to set a deadline such as the end of the year for a special promotion, you can create that countdown timer.

For my virtual summits, I set a 15 minute time limit for new visitors to buy the All-Access Pass at $47 instead of the usual $97. This countdown works very well for generating sales and can be a great asset for you as well.

 

#8: Add Buyers And Cart Abandoners Into Email Sequences

Earlier we talked about including an upsell so your customers buy more from you. Not all of your customers will take action and buy the upsell…in that moment. With the right nurturing, some people who passed up the upsell may convert a few days or weeks later.

Nurturing the relationship requires knowing in your system where that customer is along the journey. A while back, I created a Free + Shipping Page for my book Content Marketing Secrets.

I ultimately stopped promoting this because I was doing all of the work (filling in addresses, sending them out, etc.). The only way to delegate was by giving someone my Amazon password which is something I’m never doing

In any event, the order form looked like this…

Cool stuff, right? There was just one problem.

Some people who would opt-in and get to this point would abandon the cart and not pay for the shipping and handling.

Every person who opted in was added to a list of people who did not buy the book yet. They would receive an email about two days later urging them to get their copy of Content Marketing Secrets.

People who bought the book through this form were moved from the “did not buy” list to the buy list. This is something you can do with a combination of ThriveCart and ConvertKit (most emailing services work in this scenario).

On ThriveCart, you can select which list someone gets added to when they complete an order. On ConvertKit, you can set an automation so they when people get added to the buy list, they automatically get removed from the “did not buy” list.

That way, people who bought the book aren’t then getting urged two days later to buy the same book they already bought.

 

#9: Split Test Your Carts

One cool feature ThriveCart lets you utilize is A/B Split Testing. You can make a slight tweak to an order form and compare the two versions to each other. A single added benefit or slightly different copy can go a long way in boosting sales.

You can even test order bumps to see which order bump converts at a higher rate.

While I personally have not done A/B Split Tests yet, you can start your own in the ThriveCart dashboard.

You should wait for your A/B Split Test to get at least 100 visitors before making any final conclusions about which one is the better performer.

Once you find a winner, conduct a different split test to see if you can increase the conversion rate even more.

 

#10: Recruit Affiliates To Promote Your Products

This is my favorite part about ThriveCart. No matter how big your audience is, you are limited in how much exposure you can get on your own.

The best way to maximize your exposure and sales is to recruit an affiliate army to promote your products.

ThriveCart gives you the ability to add affiliates to your products and provide them with their affiliate links.

Recruiting an affiliate army goes beyond the scope of this blog post, but I do have something special. Each person who buys ThriveCart through my link will receive free access to my Advanced Affiliate Marketing Summit training. In this training, myself and over 20 other leading affiliate marketing experts share how you can boost your commissions, grow your audience, and recruit an army of affiliates for your products.

The Advanced Affiliate Marketing Summit training is one of the bonuses. I’ll talk about the others at the very end.

 

#11: Lead People From Your Website To Your ThriveCart Order Page

All that is left is leading your people to your ThriveCart Order Pages. If you want to sell straight from your website, include a link on your website that leads to the corresponding ThriveCart Order Page.

A more popular model is using your website to grow your email list. You then use an email sequence to build a relationship with new subscribers and eventually promote the appropriate ThriveCart Order Page based on what sequence the new subscriber is in.

Both of these approaches work. It’s your decision on how you apply them and which one you focus on.

 

ThriveCart has been one of the most critical softwares for my business. Without it, my summits and product launches wouldn’t make money.

…and since I am an affiliate, I decided to sweeten the pot and add these bonuses:

Bonus #1: Advanced Affiliate Marketing Summit Training

Discover how you can recruit an affiliate army for all of the products you put on ThriveCart. Over 20 top affiliate marketing summits and I will be joining forces to share how you can boost your sales, get more traffic, and recruit your very own affiliate army.

Bonus 2: Blog Traffic Domination Training 

A big part of making ThriveCart work for you is attracting traffic. An affiliate army will help you, but there are ways to bring your own traffic. The Blog Traffic Domination training will show you exactly how you can start driving a ton of people to your blog. These strategies also work if you are a podcaster or YouTuber.

Bonus #3: The Ultimate Profitable Content Repurposing Strategy

Repurposing content is one of the easiest ways to tap into multiple platforms and grow your audience. In this training, you will learn how to profitably repurpose your existing content so you can direct more people to your ThriveCart order pages.

I’ve been using ThriveCart for a few years now and love their software. To this day, I continue finding new ways to use this tool. If you encounter any new ways to use ThriveCart that I didn’t mention, let me know in the comments. I’ll give you full credit and mention you in the post.

I grateful for you being a part of the journey.

Click here to learn more about ThriveCart

The 3 Easiest Way For Nonfiction Authors To Consistently Create A Ton Of Content

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Get the exact process I use to write new books each month that generate passive income and grow my business 👉 https://amzn.to/32q2qO8

Creating content allows you to better serve your audience and reach potential customers. That’s no secret.

We know the benefit of creating content and distributing it to our community. However, it’s not always easy to remain consistent. For many creatives, time is the big issue. You only have so much time to create AND MARKET your content.

If you’re creating but not marketing, then what’s the actual point? I don’t want to be the guy who creates great content that never sees a soul.

For all of the nonfiction authors out there, you also don’t want to be the person who cranks out so much free content but can’t find the time to write and market your books.

The biggest block that holds content creators back is creating content without any purpose behind it. And no, serving your audience or being consistent are not viable reasons here.

I’ll put it this way.

I didn’t decide to write a blog post on this topic because I pulled this topic out of a hat. There’s a very intentional reason for me writing a blog post for nonfiction authors which I’ll get into shortly (no $997 course upsell here, but I’d be mighty happy if you grab your copy of The Wealthy Author and left a review).

Anyway, I’ll cover the three reasons here. By the time you read this entire blog post, you’ll know exactly why I decided to write this one.

 

#1: Hold A 1-2 Hour Workshop

If you can muster more than two hours, then more power to you. However, a one hour workshop gets the job done.

The workshop can either be a webinar or an in-person event. The webinar is definitely easier to organize from a logistics standpoint. Sit in your house and anyone from the world can join your webinar.

The in-person event is more of a hassle since you have to get local attendees and find a local venue, but you can make more money with in-person events AND learn more about your audience than with a webinar.

For the in-person option, it honestly doesn’t have to cost you anything. Reach out to local libraries, restaurants, and co-working spaces. For the majority of these venues, the price point will be somewhere between inexpensive and free. All three of these venue owners want more people in their buildings.

Libraries frequently hold events for authors.

If you can get customers inside of the restaurant during their off hours, they’re game.

If you can get side hustlers and business owners inside of a co-working space (potential customers), the co-working spaces see the need for you to hold a workshop at their place.

Regardless of how you decide to conduct your workshop, the important thing is to record yourself on video. That way, you’ve got a 1-2 hour video.

The cool part is that you can take that 1-2 hour video and turn it into a bunch of smaller videos.

I don’t think it’s farfetched for anyone to do a 1 hour workshop and end up with at least 10 short videos that are ready to be deployed on YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

Imagine if you did a webinar each month and got at least 10 videos from each of those webinars. For most people, that’s almost an entire quarter of YouTube videos done. All of that in just 1-2 hours with some editing to create those separate videos later on.

 

#2: Get More Intentional With Your Free Content

In this picture, there are two book covers. Guess what the books have in common…

“They’re by my favorite authors?” Yes. Fun fact: I own a pair of the Gary Vee sneakers

“These books have valuable content in them?” Yes. You’re getting warmer.

“They’re successful books?” Yes. That’s also true.

“The both have a lot of paper and black ink?” Yes. That’s also true, but now we’re getting silly

Okay, so there are a lot of things that these two books have in common.

But these two books aren’t like every book you’ll read.

Why?

These books are based off of the free content that the authors have posted online in the past.

You can find at least 90% of the from either of those books if you look in the right places.

Here’s the caveat…who is actually going to do that.

Gary Vee and Seth Godin come out with new content every day. Do you really want to go through thousands of blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, and other fun stuff to find all of the content from each of those books?

Or, if you really wanted to, would you just buy the books instead and save time?

Which brings us to this blog post.

Someday, I will shamelessly place this entire blog post, virtually word for word, in one of my future books.

There are a few reasons the placement will be shameless:

  1. Some readers will first learn about me through my book. This blog post would be new content for them
  2. Some visitors reading this blog post now might forget about it in two weeks. Placing it in the book would reinforce the tactics we’ve covered
  3. It’s a valuable piece of content. I’m not a fan of working so hard on something only to put it on the shelf after its initial promotion
  4. I have two choices for this content. I either include it in the next book and you can’t read it for several months until I release the book (that also implies you buy the book). OR, I release the content, provide you with consistent free value, build my tribe in advance, and then get to put it in my book later on.

This blog post is rapidly approaching 1,000 words. That’s 5% of the content for a 20,000 word book (I usually aim for between 20k-25k words per book).

Just by being a little more intentional, I now get to write blog posts and books at the same time.

 

#3: Quote Yourself

“Some really awesome quote.” — Me

So far, we’ve covered video and blogging. We’ve also indirectly covered podcasting because you can just turn your videos into MP3 files. And just like that, you’ve got a podcast too.

But there’s one form of content we haven’t covered yet.

And that’s pictures.

Sure, you might have a stash of great pictures on your smartphone that you can share with your tribe.

But a steady stream of quote pictures helps establish you as an expert in your niche.

Whenever I share a new podcast episode on Instagram, I always do it as a quote from the episode. Here’s what I’m talking about…

It took me less than five minutes to create that picture in Canva. I have an entire template in there so all I have to do is change the text and episode number.

While this method allows me to provide three great Instagram pictures to my audience each week, it’s not enough for my content schedule.

The ideal target for me is multiple Instagram pictures per day.

Two ways I’m doing this are quoting my content (think blog posts, videos, and podcasts, books, and training courses) and posting thought provoking tweets and turning them into branded Instagram posts.

Here’s what I usually do for the thought provoking tweets…

 

Pictures like these are super easy to create in Canva. And in one picture, I provide value while subtly promoting my Twitter, Breakthrough Success, and the Grow Your Influence Book Series.

You can do this with the content you already have up. Tweet a quote from it and turn that tweet into pictures for Instagram, Instagram Stories, and/or Pinterest.

 

In Conclusion

The big idea behind content creation is to provide your existing audience with value and reach more people.

However, if we spend too much time creating free content, we don’t have enough time to create products or promote ourselves.

Getting more intentional with your content and repurposing often will open up a lot more time and likely boost your income.

What are your thoughts on content creation? Do you have any tactics to share or a question for me? Sound off in the comments below.

7 Ways To Expand Your Blog Without Paying A Penny

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You can create a blog for free and grow it without paying a penny. However, the deeper you go into blog growth articles, the more likely you are to come across tools and options that cost money. Some tools cost over $100/mo and others cost even more. The go-to recommendation of using Facebook ads to grow your audience is effective, but the dollars add up.

Yes, you can invest in something like Facebook ads and make a strong ROI. However, this doesn’t help the shoestring blogger looking to make it without paying a penny.

If you want to expand your blog without paying a penny, follow these 10 tips.

 

#1: Grow Your Email List With MailChimp

Your email list is your most valuable asset. If you don’t have an email list yet and want to build one, I recommend using MailChimp to get started. MailChimp is free for the first 2,000 subscribers. If you nurture those subscribers and send them valuable content with the occasional product promotion, you’ll make a big profit by the time you surpass 2,000 subscribers.

#2: Reach Out To Influencers

Reaching out to influencers and building relationships with them increases the likelihood of more people sharing your content. I strongly recommend reaching out to influencers by having them on your podcast. It’s the best way to reach out because you build a healthy relationship, produce content for your audience, and learn more.

I use Libsyn for my podcast which costs as low as $5/mo, but in the spirit of everything free, you can use PodBean or BuzzSprout to host your podcast free of charge. Of course, you get very basic features and limited storage space, but they’re enough to host your own show and test the waters.

If you don’t want to go the podcast route, be everywhere to those influencers. Engage with them on multiple social media posts spread across the social networks, comment on their blog posts, videos, and other content, and send them an email.

When you build the relationship deep enough, some people will promote your content without you asking. It’s good to occasionally ask people for help with getting the word out if one of your blog posts is related to their niche.

#3: Publish More Content

When your blog is new, you need to publish as much content as possible. You’ll give your existing visitors a reason to return to your blog again and again. Having many blog posts available makes it possible for you to have a group of core fans.

Not only will core fans know they can keep going to your blog for epic content, but they’ll have more of your content to share with your audiences. If you only publish one blog post, you only give your core fans one piece of content to share with their audiences.

#4: Mention Other People And Articles In Your Content

And then tell them you did so. People love consuming and sharing content that they are in. It’s better to follow this approach with micro influencers—people who are influential but not so influential that they won’t have time to respond to your email let alone share your content.

Linking to prominent publications and blogs will also give you a boost on Google since they see you’re linking to authority content.

#5: Get Active On More Social Networks

It doesn’t cost us a penny to post on social media and grow our audiences. Many people post on 1-2 social networks very actively and aren’t so active on the others.

If you want the potential for generating massive traffic, get active on more social networks and grow your audiences on those platforms. You should also jump right into new social networks because if you’re a big influence on a small social network that eventually grows as big as Instagram, you’ll get a big stream of traffic from that social network.

#6: Write Guest Posts

Some blogs accept outside contributions. These blogs, otherwise known as guest blogs, rely on these outside contributions to showcase more content to their audiences. Basically, they need content, and you are one of the people who can provide that content.

Look for guest blogs in your niche by typing “[your niche] guest blog” and [your niche] write for us” into Google. Anytime you read blog posts in the future, pay attention to if they accept outside contributions.

Some of my guest posts have been shared thousands of times and given me new business. I know for a fact they can do the same for you if you align yourself with the right ones.

#7: Write Better Headlines

The headline determines how successful your content becomes. Great content with a bad headline won’t make it.

To get better at writing great headlines, examine your niche and see what headlines grab your attention. This will help you craft better headlines for your blog post. For each new blog post you write, come up with 5-10 potential headlines. You’ll get the bad ideas out quickly and eventually come across a powerful headline if you use this approach.

In Conclusion

There are many paid tools that will help you grow your blog. However, the free ways mentioned give any blogger, even bloggers on shoestring budgets, a chance to grow their audiences and catch up to the big guys.

By taking massive action, these tactics can result in thousands of people visiting your blog every month.

What were your thoughts on these tactics? Do you have any other tactics we can use to get blog traffic without paying a penny? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

The Anatomy Of An Addictive Blog Post

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Not all pieces of content are created equal. Some blog posts are easy to skip over while others are addictive. They keep us engaged and leave us craving for more.

By crafting addictive blog posts, visitors will spend more time on your blog, and the trust between you and your audience will grow as the minutes go by. Once people trust you, then they buy from you.

Addictive blog posts help you generate and build upon that trust. All addictive blog posts follow a similar structure.

 

An Addictive Headline

We’ve read many headlines in our lives. You need to be very creative with your headline to attract people to your content.

Understand now that the headline you use for each blog post wields more influence than anything else when it comes to engagement and getting people to stick around.

I have two favorite tactics for crafting an addictive headline. The first tactic is to see what everyone else is doing so you know what to steer away from.

While I still have much to learn, I am getting better at removing words like tactics, tips, and similar words from my headlines. Those words are too common in current headlines for information-based content.

I could have called this blog post “X Ways To Make Your Blog Posts More Addictive” but that uses a common style. Addictive headlines shake things up.

If you want inspiration on what to do, look at BuzzFeed. They get so much engagement from their site, and their headlines play a crucial part in that engagement.

The second tactic is to write 10 headlines for each new piece of content you create. The first few headlines will be very bad, but as you write more headlines, you’ll start coming across deeper headlines. You’ll force yourself to think beyond common headlines since you probably wrote those headlines first.

The winning headline is almost never the first one you think of.

 

Content To Back It Up

Now, what if I named this blog post “You Won’t Believe What Happened To This Iguana After It Touched A Porcupine”?

To take a quick time out, if someone has that headline and an actual video, I’m curious myself.

Headlines like this make us want to learn more. However, you need the content to back up the headline.

If you come to this blog post expecting a video of an iguana touching a porcupine, you were very disappointed. However, if a blog post by the same title existed, and the iguana didn’t touch the porcupine, you’d also be very disappointed.

Addictive headlines without substance behind the content are nothing more than clickbait. Sure, you’ll get visitors, but they won’t stick around. Some will very publicly denounce your content if you use clickbait.

I know that you’re far beyond using clickbait. But it needs to be said. Make sure your content backs up the headline.

To flip from a negative like clickbait to a positive, the more you back up the headline, the more addictive your blog post becomes. I could have written three sentences for this blog post.

If I did that, it wouldn’t have captured the same value that you’re getting now. Some things can be said in three sentences. This is something that can be said in three sentences but much better said with several sections and paragraphs.  

 

Easy To Read

Notice how my paragraphs are very short? Technically, a paragraph needs to be at least four lines.

Did you see how I started one of my sentences with but when talking about clickbait? Grammatically, I should have made it a conjunction and turned those two sentences into one sentence. But that would result in a long sentence.

Long sentences and paragraphs are hard to read.

Most of your visitors will be skimmers. You need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to glean the highlights. If your blog post is really good, you might get some skimmers to slow down their pace.

You can also use bullet points and bold font. I don’t always utilize these features. But I aim to use them when I can.

To make up for that, I have clearly laid out sections in each blog post. If you don’t like a particular section (i.e. the one you’re reading now), you can just skip to the next one. Speaking about the next section…

 

Beyond The Written Word

Blogging is a writer’s dream. While writing content about a topic you enjoy is very fun, you need to incorporate multiple media formats into each blog post.

Most people only use the written word in their blog posts. Some people add a picture at the top of their blog posts and that’s about it.

That’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. At least, if you want an addictive blog post.

You need a new piece of media approximately every 300 words. That ensures your visitors aren’t just looking through a wall of text.

And notice how I said new piece of media and not just a new picture. There’s nothing wrong with including videos within your blog posts. If you include enough videos, you can turn each of your blog posts into mini training courses.

Depending on the videos you choose (engagement, total minutes, etc.), some of your videos may spend more than 20 minutes on a single blog post.

I also recommend choosing YouTube videos because YouTube is good at getting people to continue watching videos. They offer tailored suggestions which would then be offered on your blog.

Some of your visitors may watch more of the videos YouTube suggested all while on your blog. That’s a lot of time to spend on one place, and that’s how trust builds at a rapid pace.

 

In Conclusion

Addictive blog posts are meant to keep people on your blog for as long as possible. The only way people will stick around is if you give them multiple reasons to do so. You can provide a legendary experience, massive value, and a stream of additional content.

We need to advance beyond creating valuable content. Valuable content is important, but we all know that creating valuable content is important. We need to think more about the experience and optimizing our content for minutes viewed.

Long form content is better optimized for a boost in minutes. But if you include engaging videos within your content, you’ll reach the next level in engagement.

What are your thoughts on the anatomy of addictive blog posts? Do you have any advice to share about making blog posts more addictive? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.