How to Write a Blog Post That Gets MASSIVE Traffic

In this video I’m going to show you how to write a blog post the right way.

Specifically, you’re going to learn how to write blog posts that get traffic, social shares, backlinks, first page Google rankings, and more.

With that, here’s a quick preview of the techniques I’ll cover in the video:

The first step is all about finding the right topic for your post. In my experience, your post topic can make or break your content. And your blog as a whole. So it’s important to get this step right.

Next, I’ll show you how to write headlines and post intros that get clicks and engagement. Yes, I’ll draw from my personal experience. But I’ll also show you a few industry studies that back up what I’m talking about.

Then, I show you how to write a blog post that gets results. Creating an awesome post isn’t an art. It’s a science. And in this step you’ll learn the step-by-step process you can use to crank out world-class blog content.

Finally, I show you how to optimize your post for SEO. This is the exact checklist that I use to optimize my own blog content at Backlinko. And it works.

In the end, you’ll have a system that you can follow to write blog posts that help grow your blog.

Transcript:

– In this video I’m gonna show you

how to write a blog post that gets hundreds of comments.

Thousands of social shares, and first page Google Rankings.

In fact, I use the exact process in this video

to grow my blog to a 426,496 visits per month.

I’m Brian Dean, the Founder of Backlinko,

the place where marketers turn for higher Rankings

and more traffic.

Keep watching.

Let’s face it, getting traffic to your blog

is harder than ever, in fact I’ve recently teamed up

with BuzzSumo to analyze 912 million blog posts.

And we found that the vast majority of blog posts

that are published, get zero links or social shares.

When I launched my first blog way back in 2009,

things worked completely different.

Back then, getting links and social shares

was relatively easy.

You could publish a 500 word blog post and call it a day.

490 words, 499 words, 500 words, done ski.

Flash forward to today and things are completely different.

According to WordPress, 2.3 million blog posts come out

on their platform everyday.

So for your content to stand out and get shared today,

it needs to be amazing.

Lucky for you, that’s exactly what I’m gonna show you

how to do in this video, step-by-step.

Starting with Step Number One,

find a proven blog post topic.

It’s no secret that your blog post topic is huge.

Here’s exactly how to find blog post topics

that actually work.

First head over to Udemy.

Udemy is a blog post topic goldmine, here’s why.

Udemy doesn’t just show you content

that people are interested in,

instead you see content that people are actually paying for.

(cash register rings)

You can search for courses by category or by keyword.

Either way, you’ll find content that people are actually

paying to access.

For example, let’s say you run a blog about graphic design.

Well head over to the Design Category in Udemy,

and scroll down to their best-selling courses

and within five seconds you have a list of proven topics.

Very cool.

The next place to look for proven topic ideas is Amazon.

To use it, just search on Amazon with the keyword

that describes what you’re blog is all about.

Then look for a book on that topic with lots of ratings,

this shows you that people actually bought the book.

Finally, click look inside, to see the table of contents

and just like with Udemy, you get a list of topics

presented to you on a silver platter.

Last up we have conference agenda’s.

First head over to a conference website in your niche,

go to the agenda or schedule page, and you’ll see topics

that people are paying to learn more about.

Which leads us to Step Number Two.

Write your headline.

Now that you have a proven topic,

it’s time to write your blog post headline.

You might have seen the stat before

that 80 percent of people read your headline,

but only 20 percent click over to the actual post.

Is that stat true?

Who knows, but I do know that your headline

is super important.

With that, here’s exactly how to write blog post headlines

that stand out and get clicks.

First start your headline off with proven phrases.

BuzzSumo recently analyzed about 100 million headlines.

So what did they find?

That headlines that start with these 20 words and phrases,

get the most shares on social media.

For example, when I published this post on my blog,

I made sure to start my headline off

with one of those phrases.

Obviously you don’t need to start every single headline off

with one of those phrases, but when it makes sense

try and use them.

Second, make sure that your title

uses brackets or parentheses.

A study by Outbrain found that adding brackets to headlines

can improve click through rate by up to 38 percent.

And this study confirms what I’ve seen in the real world.

In fact, six of my top ten all time, most popular blog posts

have brackets or parentheses in the title.

Finally, you wanna use long headlines.

That study of 900 million blog posts

that I mentioned earlier,

found that posts with long headlines got 76 percent

more shares compared to posts that used short headlines.

With that, it’s time for Step Number Three,

write an attention-grabbing introduction.

Topic, check.

Headline, check.

Now it’s time to write an introduction

that grabs your readers attention right off the bat, how?

The PPT Formula.

This formula is killing it for me right now.

By the way, the PPT stands for

Preview, proof, transition.

Here’s a breakdown of the formula.

Now I’m gonna break down each part of this formula

and show you how it works with real-life examples.

First up, you have the preview.

This part couldn’t be any more simple.

Just let your reader know exactly what to expect.

That way when someone lands on one of your blog posts,

they know that they’re in the right place.

Here’s and example.

Next, it’s time for the proof.

Here’s where you show people

that you know what you’re talking about.

Now what if you don’t know what you’re talking about,

well you’ve got bigger problems than blog post introductions

but that’s another story.

Now you can show proof with personal results,

years of experience, number of clients,

credentials or certifications,

or anything that shows that someone should listen

to your advice.

Here’s an example.

Last up we have the transition.

Cap your intro off with a transition,

a transition that pushes your reader to keep reading.

For example, you can see that of used the phrase,

“Let’s dive right in,” at the end of this intro, simple.

Moving right along to Step Number Four,

Write and awesome post.

Is there a formula for writing blog posts

that people will link to and share?

No, if there was, everyone would use it.

That said, there are proven strategies

that you can use to make your content ten times better.

For example, one technique that’s working really well

for me right now, is using lots of section sub headers.

Sub headers are great because they break your content up

into easy to read chunks, which is super important

if you publish a lot of long-form content like I do.

For example, this post for my blog is super long.

In fact, that post is 4,300 words, so I broke up the content

into little chunks, using dozens of sub headers.

I also recommend using lots of visuals in every post

that you publish.

Now when I’m talking about visuals and talking about things

like screenshots, charts, pictures, infographics,

basically don’t be afraid to use a ton of different visuals

and just lots of visuals in general in every post.

For example, this post for my blog has 95 visuals.

Next, use a font that’s between 16 and 20 pixels,

if you’ve ever read anything at medium.com,

you’ve probably noticed that their articles

are super easy to read.

How do they do it?

Well besides a clean layout, they use 21 point font.

And if you’re using anything less than 16,

you probably missing out on a lot of readers.

That’s why we use 18 point font here at Backlinko.

Finally when it makes sense, publish content

that’s at least three thousand words.

Our BuzzSumo Industry study, found a clear corelation

between long-form content and social shares.

In fact, our data showed that long-form content

got an average of 77 percent more social shares,

compared to traditional short blog posts.

Obviously this doesn’t mean that you need to pad

your blog posts with a bunch of fluff or filler.

But if it does make sense to publish

a long-form blog post or guide, go for it.

So now that your post is in the books,

it’s time for the next step, Step Number Five,

write your conclusion.

Here’s the deal.

Most people use throw away conclusions like this.

But professional bloggers know that your conclusion

is super important.

Especially if you wanna get lots of comments on your blog.

Well I’ve recently developed a three-step process

for writing awesome conclusions.

It’s called the TAC Process.

Here’s how it looks.

First start your conclusion off with a transition.

This sentence lets people know

that the meat of your blog post is over

and it’s time to sum things up.

Here’s an example.

Next, it’s time for the ask.

Here’s where you ask your reader a very specific question.

In other words, you don’t wanna ask something vague

like what do you think?

Instead, give your reader an insanely simple question

that’s easier to answer.

For example, in this conclusion you can see

that I asked people something that will take like

two seconds to answer.

And you wanna end your conclusion with a CTA.

Your CTA can be whatever you want your reader to do next.

You can ask your readers to leave comment,

share on social media, sign up for your newsletter,

subscribe to your YouTube channel,

the exact call to action that you use is totally up to you.

But the important thing to keep in mind here,

is that you got someone to read your blog post

all the way to the end.

Which means they really enjoyed your content

and they’re ready for the next step.

And as long as you give them

that next step in your conclusion, you’re good.

We do a conclusion in the books, let’s head over

to Step Number Six, optimize your post for SEO.

Obviously there’s a lot more to SEO

than I can cover in a short video.

In fact, I have an entire blog

and YouTube channel about SEO.

That said, SEO is super important for your blog posts

long-term success.

So I do wanna quickly cover three simple techniques

that you can use to optimize your blog posts for SEO.

Because the truth is, traffic to most peoples blog posts

look like this, a huge spike on day one,

then it flattens out to pretty much zero.

But when you optimize your post the right way,

you still get that spike, but your post still brings in

consistent traffic month after month.

For example, I first published this post

over five years ago.

Now I’ve updated it a few times since then,

but it’s basically the same post.

And because that post if optimized for SEO,

it still brings in over 12,000 visitors per month

from Google.

So the first on page SEO technique is to include

your target key word in your introduction.

Google and other search engines put more weight

on words and phrases that show up at the top of your page.

So you wanna make sure to use your keyword once

in your blog post intro like this.

Next use short URL’s.

When it comes to Google Rankings there’s no doubt about it,

short URL’s work best.

In fact, Google themselves actually recommend that you use

short descriptive URL’s.

That’s because short URL’s make it easy for Google

to understand the topic of your page.

Plus people use your URL to figure out which result

they should click on.

Which is why lots of industry studies have found

that short URL’s get clicked on more than long URL’s.

Finally, add internal links to your post.

Now internal linking doesn’t have to be complicated.

In fact, when it comes to internal links,

I like to keep things simple.

Whenever I publish a new post, I add two to five

internal links to some of my older posts.

Now you could also go back to older posts

and link to the new post that you just published.

For example, when I published this post

about keyword research, I linked that to related content

on my site that I already published.

And added a handful of internal links from older posts

to my new guide.

And before we end this video,

I have a quick bonus step for you, promote your post.

I know this video is designed to show you

how to write a blog post, but here’s the deal.

Most blog posts, even good ones fail,

because they’re not promoted enough.

And no, sharing your content on Twitter and Facebook

doesn’t really count as promotion.

To get your content seen today, you need to do a lot more

than just share on social media.

In fact, I usually spend about 20 percent of my time

writing content and 80 percent of my time promoting

that content, that’s how important content promotion is.

With that, here are three quick content promotion strategies

that you can try.

Our first strategy is the content announcement newsletter.

When it comes to content promotion,

email crushes social media.

And it’s not even that close.

For example, I published this post on my blog

a few months ago.

And like I do for all new posts, I sent out a Tweet.

I also sent out this simple,

plain text announcement newsletter to my email subscribers.

And when it was all said and done, the newsletter got nearly

13 times more clicks than my tweet.

To be clear, I do have more email subscribers

than Twitter followers.

But still, there’s no denying

that email is way more powerful

when it comes to promoting content compared to social media.

Next, we have Facebook retargeting.

It’s no secret that Facebook’s organic reach

is pretty much zero right now.

Fortunately you can still get your Facebook followers

to see your posts, without paying a fortune.

The secret is to boost your posts,

but only boost to people that have visited your site.

In other words, retargeting.

For example, I paid about 50 cents per click

on this boosted Facebook post, which is dirt cheap

considering that I’m in the competitive,

expensive B2B niche.

Finally we have Email Outreach.

If you don’t have an email list yet,

Outreach is probably the best way to promote your content.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is you can’t just send the same

spammy email to 100 people and expect it to work.

In fact I get generic emails like this all the time,

you probably do too, and I delete them within two seconds.

But I don’t automatically delete

every Outreach email that I get.

If someone takes the time to send me a personalized message,

I’ll usually at least check out their post.

And if the post is something that I think the Backlinko

community would enjoy, I’ll share it.

So, there you have it.

My Seven Step Process for writing a blog post.

If you like this video, make sure to subscribe

to my YouTube channel right now.

Just click on the Subscribe button below this video.

And if you want exclusive SEO techniques

that I only share with email subscribers,

head over to Backlinko.com and sign up for the newsletter.

It’s free.

Now I wanna hear from you.

Which strategy from this video are you gonna try first?

Are you gonna promote your content with email Outreach,

or try using shorter blog post URL’s?

Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

When I’ve…

Did you hear that beeping?

I hope blowing your ears out.

Finally… (mumbles).

Testing, testing.

With that, oh.

Okay, okay.

Next, use.

Okay, I’ll try take of that.

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