Everything you need to know about blogging

Blogs were one of the first forms of expression born on the web. Everyone could start their own blog and talk about everything and. The most popular were travel, life and cooking blogs, but the topics were, and still are, incredibly broad. The Internet collects everything.

What's the point in writing a blog?

Search engines have one purpose: to give the best answers in the shortest time possible to any question asked by users. To do this, a complex system has been built that scans online content, evaluates it and decides how high it should be placed in search results. Having a site built well, with the right contents and a series of precise parameters, leads search engines to value it.

Having an active blog means having an edge in positioning on search pages. In fact, not only will the search engine place the company site to which the blog belongs higher, but every single blog article also represents an extra door to get the user to the site.

If the contents are inherent to the sector in which the company works, if they are well written and with interesting topics, users' interest is captured. Users will visit the site for longer and take it as an authoritative and useful source of information.

A blog keeps the site up and running

Search engines value sites that are renewed, because it is an indication of attention to content. Up-to-date content means, in digital logic, valuable, fresh, useful content. Having a blog on which articles are periodically uploaded means keeping the site active, enhancing it. Of course, positioning depends on many other factors, but updating content is one of them. Relying on an agency specialized in content creation is often the best solution to obtain constant and concrete results.

1. Keywords

The first thing to do for effective writing in terms of positioning is to find the keyword on which to position the article. The keyword is the keyword that is used by users to search for what they need. You need to identify, using the right tools, the keyword that best suits the article you want to write and that has the most search traffic. There are two categories:

Short-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords

Short-tail keywords are short keywords, containing between one and three words. Being so short, they are generic. This means that they attract more traffic but have greater competition, because they are more used.

Long-tail keywords contain more than three words, which makes them more specific. They bring less traffic, but allow for less competition. This way, it is easier for the article to appear higher in search results.

2. Titles and subtitles

The chosen keyword must appear in the title. It is even better if it is placed at the beginning, but it is not a necessary condition. You can also write titles that do not contain the keyword, but you will naturally be disadvantaged. The title, in any case, can also be written once you have finished writing the article.

The blog article must be divided into paragraphs, which usually must not exceed three hundred words, preceded by subtitles. These must recall the content of the article, i.e. at least two of these must contain the keyword. It is good that there is a title, only two subtitles and several sub-subtitles, but without exceeding.

3. Content

As regards the actual text, there are various indications. The length must be at least three hundred words. Shorter texts may seem easier to read, but search engines do not consider them long enough to actually contain the answer to the needs of the user who carried out the search.

Search engines favor hypertexts, i.e. texts linked to other texts. For this reason, links must be present within the text. These links must be:

Interior
External

Internal links are links that refer to internal pages of the blog itself. External links refer to blogs, sites, platforms external to the website. It is important that these pages are authoritative sources, or the article will be disadvantaged. However, you shouldn't overdo the number of links either. A good number can be two internal and two external. As internal links, calls to action can be inserted in the article, which refer to the contact page and encourage contact between user and brand.

To aid reading of the text, bulleted lists and bold words can be used. It is not recommended to use underlined words, because they are too similar to the words with a link and would lead the reader to confuse them.

A detail not to forget are the images. A cover image consistent with the content and those of the other articles must be inserted. In this way, by browsing the site and arriving at the blog page, you will be able to find a concordance between the various articles. It is a good idea to insert images or videos even within the text, without however exceeding them, or the written content will fade into the background. The images must be renamed with the title of the article and the name of the site to which they belong. In some cases it is also necessary to reduce its weight, so as not to slow down the loading of the page.

Finally, we must also take care of the meta description. This is the short description that appears under the main title in search results. It must briefly summarize the article, encouraging users to read it, and must contain the keyword.

4. Promotion on social media

To complete the work and sponsor the contents created, communication can be integrated by re-sharing the articles on social media. Some social networks don't allow you to see the preview, like Instagram, but others do. We are mainly talking about Facebook and LinkedIn, the main social networks on which to communicate your brand. Together with the re-sharing link, it is a good idea to briefly describe the content of the article, inserting a final call to action.

Define a target

The first thing to do is define the target you want to intercept, which is the same one the company is targeting.

Who might be interested in the business advertised on the site? Is there a specific language to use? Can specific terms belonging to the sector be used or is it better to use simpler formulas?

There are many questions and they all serve to give guidelines to follow in writing. In this way, the articles not only adapt to the target, but will maintain consistency with each other and with the site to which they belong. They will adapt to the brand's identity even when communicating information.

Define a PED

After defining the target to be addressed, it is a good idea to plan the PED. The acronym stands for "Digital Editorial Plan" and is a document used to plan the contents that will be published online, with the aim of achieving a specific objective.

Through the PED, you can plan the days on which to publish and the related topics to cover. Possibly, you can link back to anniversaries and holidays, also declining the articles depending on these, if they are consistent with the brand and the topics it could cover.

A time schedule also helps to organize your writing work.

Structure the articles

For the effective writing of blog articles, it is essential to first inform yourself about the topics. Once you have collected all the necessary information, you need to structure the article with titles, subtitles and paragraphs. The keywords for that specific article must be entered within these.

Various images or videos should also be included in the article to better describe the content or support it, as well as adding a cover. Furthermore, links must be inserted that refer to the site itself and to external sites. This will enrich the page.

Publication and promotion

Once the contents have been concluded and approved, the articles must be planned and published on the blog. To give greater visibility and prominence to the article, increasing its traffic, it is a good idea to reshare it on the brand's social platforms.

Some social networks do not allow the re-sharing of a link, such as Instagram, but you can always make dedicated posts and stories that link to the brand's website. On others, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, resharing the article allows you to preview it.