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how to write quality blog posts

3 Reasons To Ask Questions In Your Blog Posts

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Questions

In a world where everyone focuses on quality content, SEO, and getting more traffic, there is a tiny detail that many bloggers forget to include in their blog post. Not including this element of a blog post makes these bloggers lose engagement and strong connections (some of those connections lead to sales). The element of a blog post that most people forget about is asking questions.

I always make sure I see one question in a blog post that I publish. I actually search for the question mark using the word finder just to make sure. The reason I make sure I am asking questions in my blog posts is because there are three powerful outcomes of asking questions in your blog posts.

  1. Your visitors will feel as if they are having a conversation with you. Asking a question in one of your blog posts starts a dialogue. The visitor has to think of an answer to that question. Then, as you ask more questions in your blog posts, the conversation will build. How do you think I am doing with this blog post so far? Your response is the continuation of our conversation that is currently taking place.
  2. You blog posts will get more comments. If you ask questions, you will start a conversation. The only problem for the particular conversation taking place (such as the one in this blog post), a visitor cannot ask a blogger a question and get a quick response. I can ask you how your day was and get a quick response. If you ask me how my day was, you would still be staring at a blank screen. In order to get a response from me or any other blogger who asks questions, a visitor would have to leave a comment below to get the proper response. How many comments do your blog posts get? Imagine what would happen if you could double that number. Asking questions throughout your blog posts makes that possible.
  3. Passive reading turns into active reading. If there are no questions in a blog post, then the visitor is passively reading that blog post. When you ask a question, you are turning passive reading into active reading. You are forcing your visitor to go from scrolling through your content to think of an honest answer.

Those are the three big reasons why you need to ask more questions in your blog posts. How did you like the blog post? What are your thoughts on asking questions in your blog posts? Please share your thoughts below.

 

The Secret Formula To Creating Quality How-To Blog Posts

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golden egg

What is a quality blog post? There are a lot of definitions of the term. Regardless of the definition you have of writing a quality blog post, it has become more known than ever that writing quality content helps in the process of standing out from the crowd. There is a secret formula that some bloggers use to create quality blog posts, and I am going to share that formula with you. Here’s the secret formula:

  1. Tell people what you are writing about in a clear manner. What is your blog post about? The headline of your blog post tells people exactly what you are going to be talking about. If the headline’s topic is clear, then people will already know the topic of your blog post as they read it.
  2. Have a strong intro. There are millions of blogs to choose from, but your visitors chose your blog. Once they know what your blog post is going to be about, you need a strong introduction. A list of different tactics is not as good as a paragraph or two making the visitor want to continue reading your blog post. Don’t rush into the tactics and the how-to part of your blog post. Give your visitors a quick intro that encourages them to read on.
  3. The first sentence is critical. The first sentence is the difference between having someone read your entire blog post or having someone read another blog. The first sentence needs to grab the visitor’s attention. Common ways to do this are to ask a question, offer a really cool statistic, talk about a big change, or use a testimonial. There are other ways to create a really good first sentence, but it is important to know that the first sentence sets the tone for the entire blog post.
  4. Have good tactics that are organized well. The better your tactics are, the better your blog post can become. Choose your two favorite tactics. Put one of those tactics as the first tactic and put the other tactic as the last one. This is just like the concept of having a dynamic opening sentence and a dynamic closing sentence.
  5. Support your tactics. This is where a lot of people get it wrong. Some people only support their tactics with a short sentence while other people add every word possible to support their tactic so the blog post looks better. A longer blog post does not necessarily equate to a better blog post, but a blog post in which the tactics are poorly supported is not a good one either. I usually support my tactics with a paragraph at most. It is better to support your tactic well with a paragraph than it is to support a tactic well with three paragraphs.
  6. It’s not about the length of the blog post. Seth Godin’s blog post, Polishing Junk, is less than 50 words. Despite that, his blog post was shared over 1,500 times on different social networks. I’m sure there are people reading this blog post saying, “You’re talking about Seth Godin. His blog posts always get shared that many times.” The reason his short blog post got shared many times is because he was able to make his point quickly. He could have added a bunch of statistics and testimonials to his blog post, but he didn’t need to. He already made his point. I’m sure the people who visited that blog post read every word of it. That does not always happen with longer blog posts.
  7. Have a strong conclusion that sums up why the visitors needs to implement the tactics. End your blog post on a good note by telling your visitors what they will be able to accomplish by implementing the tactics you talked about. The conclusion needs to grab their attention just as much as the introduction so you leave the visitor wanting more.

By implementing these tactics, you will be able to write how-to blog posts that grab the attention of more people. When you grab more attention for your blog posts, more people will share your blog posts. Sooner or later, you may end up like Seth Godin and get over a thousand people sharing all of your blog posts. That only becomes possible when you write quality blog posts. After you master writing quality blog posts, the only thing left to do is get more traffic. As you share your blog posts on your social networks, and your traffic numbers go up, people will read as many of your blog posts and sharing as many of them as they can.