How to Beef up your Blog Post Articles

How to Beef up your Blog Post Articles

Value, value, value. I cannot stress enough on how important it is to publish truly valuable content in your posts, and how much this will make a difference in your traffic down the line. Value should be in every element of your blog post, from the first impression which is the title or headline that encourages visitors to click, to the images, visual content and the material that will make your post unique. Below are some additional ways to help you beef up your blog articles and add value to your posts.

1. Add a video
2. Add a PowerPoint presentation
3. Include a .Gif
4. Provide a freebie or giveaway
5. Add relevant images
6. Provide downloadable Pdfs
7. Add a comment section
8. Use a unique sidebar for every category
9. Add social buttons
10. Invite readers to different pages of your website
11. Incorporate Info-graphics
12. Add screenshots
13. Visualize your data through Charts and Graphs
14. Add read related articles section

1. Add a video

Videos can provide information about your offer faster than copy. The video should be  1-2 minutes in length that explains your offer in a more compact manner. The main idea is to keep it  professional, short and sweet.

Real insights

• Crazy Egg added a video on their page, they saw a 64% increase in their conversion rates. The short video helped them generate an additional $21,000 in monthly revenue.
• GrowYourOwnGroceries.com tested a video on their page, they saw a 12.62% increase on their CTA button clicks.

When you are adding a video, make sure you don’t make the mistakes that most bloggers do. One example is setting the video to autoplay as soon as the user lands on the page. Yes, they arrived at your landing page looking for a solution to their problem. Give them the opportunity to digest your content at their control (pressing play) as opposed to shoving your message down your users’ throat. If you still feel that autoplay is appropriate, try using a silent full-screen video instead. Another mistake is uploading wrong video formats which result in slow page rendering. when you are uploading a video make sure you are using the Best Format to Embed Video in an Article on WordPress.

2. Add a PowerPoint Presentation

3. Include a .Gif

If you feel you don’t have the budget to create a high quality video, or simply feel that a video will distract your audience from the main message, use a gif instead. Gifs play on a loop and demonstrate how your product is used.

4. Provide a Freebie or Giveaway

Provide a freebie, a valuable freebie, a giveaway which your audience will appreciate. A lot of website owners provide their audience with a useless freebie, that would bring no value to the user. Here are 5 tips to extract the most out of your freebie without looking like a scam:

• Explain thoroughly what the freebie includes, showcase your freebie, just as you present your product or service.
• Don’t ask for personal information in return. A name and email field should be more than enough to establish a relationship with your audience.
• Don’t ask you audience to share your website on their profile to be able to download your freebie.

5. Add Relevant Images

The right image can not only be interesting to your readers and used on social networks as a featured image for your page (if you don’t have a thumbnail set), but it can also add real value and insight into your post and can reinforce your message. When choosing images to add to your blog post, try to upload original content, or buy stock images or even design an image if you have to. The main point is to have real and relevant images to your blog which by default can help you drive traffic.

6. Provide Downloadable Pdfs

PDFs allow you to share documents among different devices and operating systems. It ensures that the contents of document are printed in the same way on different platforms.  A PDF download option with your posts allow users to save your content on their computers and print it when they want. You can even include hyperlinks in your .Pdf document so you can redirect your users back to particular segments of your blog. You can add a PDF download to your WordPress posts with Simple File Down-loader plugin.

7. Add a Comment Section

The comment section is the social proof for your blog. Blog comments section is the best place possible to interact with the author, and get direct feedback. Linking your Facebook account to your comment section would be a good idea, although many bloggers will not like what I just said. If you decided to activate your comment section, and allow every one to comment, you might want adjust your comment options from comment setting.

• Turn on comment moderation for first time commenters
• Check the option for blog administrator to approve the first comment from everyone
• Add your blocked words list
• Write blog comment policy

Unless you are writing for personal reasons and have no desire for feedback from outside readers, feel free to turn off your comments.

8. Use a Unique Sidebar for Every Category

Aside from featuring your bio on every page of your blog, what’s the purpose of a sidebar in the first place? Isn’t the sidebar an area were you can use to promote products or services? Then why not squeeze the most out of the side bar and assign a unique sidebar for every category your blog holds? Place different ads, services on different articles instead of limiting yourself to 1 sidebar across the blog. To ad another level and use all the white space on your webpage, 2 sidebars per page is also possible. Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Widget Area Manager & Easy Custom Sidebars allow you to make custom sidebar configurations and be able to choose what widgets display on each page or post of your site. You can read more about sidebars on wordpress sidebar codex.

9. Add Social Buttons

You can not dedicate all of that time to your blog, but you still want to get the most out of it, right? The success of a blog largely depends on how many people actually read it and one important way to increase readership is to include social share buttons on every blog post. Social buttons is a free way of advertising to increase your traffic and exposure and grow your natural link network. You can find different free and paid plugins which hold different features and flexibility. Don’t go overboard and crowd your page with social buttons, keep the user experience in mind use the benefits of social sharing buttons without negatively impacting your site.

10. Invite Readers to Different Pages of your Website

I have previously pointed how important internal links are to search engines in my article “How To Write Perfect SEO-Optimized Articles in WordPress“. Additionally, Internal links help your reader to easily visit different pages on your blog, based on how you distribute your content. To learn more about internal links, check Yoast Internal Link Guide.

11. Incorporate Infographics

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to visually engage your audience and give them information in a way that attracts and informs a large audience while simultaneously presenting information quickly and clearly.

12. Add Screenshots

Use screenshots when you are describing a product, or if you are guiding the reader through a tutorial.  To capture your an image in Windows, press the Print Screen key. Open your favorite image editor (like Paint, GIMP, Photoshop, GIMPshop, Paintshop Pro, Irfanview, and others) and create a new image. Press CTRL + V to paste the screenshot. For Mac users, copy a portion of the screen to the clipboard, press Command-Control-Shift-4. To simplify this process you can install Clipular to your browser and capture your screen with auto save with 2 clicks only.

13. Visualize Data through Charts and Graphs

Google’s chart tools are powerful, simple to use, and free. You can choose from a variety of charts and configure an extensive set of options to match the look and feel of your website. By connecting your data in real time, Google Charts is the perfect infographic generator for your website.

14. Add a Related Articles Section

By adding Related posts in WordPress, you are killing three birds with one stone because you’ll be decreasing your bounce rate, increasing the user session time, and increasing your page views. If your theme doesn’t include a related article section, you can use free plugins to add this section to your blog, or you can add it manually through a .php code.